A three-year research programme will investigate Parkinson’s disease in unprecedented detail, with the aim of discovering a cure for the condition.
The Landmark programme will bring together Parkinson’s UK, Imperial College London, pharma companies GSK, Novartis, Roche and UCB for the first time, and is sponsored by a founding gift of £4m from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
The Landmark programme will look at what causes the condition, and what triggers the spread through the brain and then causes the sequences of symptoms.
Parkinson’s is the fastest-growing neurological condition in the world and affects around 153 000 people in Britain, reports The Independent.
The project will analyse hundreds of tissue samples from the Parkinson’s UK Brain Bank to create a map of how genes are activated in the disease, across the different cell types.
Researchers hope the findings will reveal the causes of Parkinson’s and Parkinson’s dementia, why some brain cells are more vulnerable to the condition than others, and potential targets for developing new treatments.
They also hope to uncover new ways to measure the progression of the condition, and which genes or mutations in the body increase someone’s risk of developing Parkinson’s.
Professor David Dexter, director of research at Parkinson’s UK, said: “It will give us an unparalleled depth of information into what causes Parkinson’s, and what triggers the spread of the pathology through the brain and then causes the sequences of symptoms, culminating in dementia in quite a high percentage of people with Parkinson’s.
He added that for the first time, scientists will identify the causal risk genes for Parkinson’s.
“If you know a gene that’s implicated in risk, it’s far easier to actually develop therapies to stop the condition. So ultimately, we’re going to identify new drug targets, but also going to strengthen the target validation for existing drugs that are currently in the pipeline.”
Landmark, he added, would “significantly strengthen our ability to develop potential new treatments and a cure for the world’s fastest-growing neurological condition”.
Michael Johnson, professor of neurology and genomic medicine at Imperial College London and the lead investigator, said: “The Landmark project will produce state-of-the-art datasets to enable scientists to fully understand the biological ways in which Parkinson’s takes hold and progresses in the brain.
“But alongside that, our overarching aim is to find new potential drugs that can help us tackle the condition.
“By identifying the predictive biomarkers involved in Parkinson’s, we hope to speed up the eventual journey of these drugs to patients.”
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