Eight national and local Parkinson’s disease groups teamed together to award approximately $4 million in research grants through the new Community Fast Track research initiative, led by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF).  The program officially named 18 projects which it will fund over two years through the investigator-initiated program, designed to stimulate novel, innovative and high-impact approaches to the field of Parkinson’s research.

Grant recipients were chosen from a large pool of international applicants assessed on the quality of novel science proposed as well as potential to increase understanding of Parkinson’s and eventually translate findings into patient treatments. Among this year’s awardees, three researchers will be receiving funding specifically to investigate Parkinson’s disease for the first time.  These three grants represent an early success for the program, which aims to attract new scientists from other research fields to study PD.

“Community Fast Track offers a channel through which Parkinson’s groups can contribute to an extremely selective peer-review award process,” explained Deborah W. Brooks, executive director. “This collaboration is distinguished not only by the merit of each individual application funded but also by the power of the Parkinson’s community as a whole to draw new researchers into the field and cultivate them for long-term development.”

Janusz B. Suszkiew, PhD, one of the portfolio’s grant recipients receiving funding for the first time in the field of Parkinson’s disease, will study the effect of nicotine on inflammatory agents within the brain.  Inflammation of brain tissue is widely believed to play an important role in the degeneration of dopamine cells leading to Parkinson’s disease.  He theorizes that nicotine could have long-term neuroprotective effects by acting to suppress inflammation in the brain and provide the basis for development of new drug treatments for PD patients.

Another grantee, Leo J. Pallanck, PhD, hopes to uncover new therapeutic approaches to treat PD through genetic studies of the disease.  He will investigate the genetic factors underlying the toxicity of alpha-synuclein, a protein identified as a primary factor in Parkinson’s. His research will contribute to the explanation of how alpha-synuclein kills dopamine neurons in the human brain, which may ultimately advance development of new Parkinson’s therapies.

“Many of the projects we have chosen are innovative because they ask new questions,” stated Robert E. Burke, MD, Director of Laboratory Research in Parkinson’s Disease and Related Disorders at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and member of the scientific advisory boards of MJFF and the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. “However, this portfolio includes grants which are equally exciting and potentially groundbreaking because they offer a new perspective to standard questions and approach them from different angles.”

Kimberly Bjugstad, PhD, will revisit the issue of neural tissue transplants for Parkinson’s disease patients, which despite high expectations from the scientific community have not yielded successful therapeutic results in PD patients.  Using rat models of Parkinson’s disease, Dr. Bjugstad will try to rebuild the nigrostratial pathway, the neurociruitry lost in PD patients. She anticipates that a clearer understanding of the reconstruction of this pathway, and development of new grafting techniques, will shed light on why transplants have failed to date.

The following is a complete list of researchers who were awarded grants for The Michael J. Fox Foundation Community Fast Track 2003 initiative:

M. Flint Beal, MD
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
“Methionine Sulfoxide Reductase & Parkinson’s Disease Pathogenesis”

Erwan Bezard, PhD
CNRS UMR 5543 – Universite de Bordeaux 2
“Multi-single Unit Elextrophsiological Characterization of Dyskinesia Induced by Dopaminetic Drug”

Kimberly Bjugstad, PhD
University of Colorado, Health Sciences Center
“Reconstructing the Neural Circuits in Parkinson’s, Using Biodegradable Polymer Bridges or Striatal Co-grafts to Encourage Neural Outgrowth from Transplanted Tissue”

Robert Chen, MA, MSc, FRCPC
Toronto Western Hospital, University of Toronto
“Effects of Subthalamic Nucleus Stimulation on Sensorimotor Integratiom”

Stephanie Cragg, MA, DPhil
University of Oxford
“The Regulation of Synaptic Dopamine by Striatal Nicotonic Receptor”

Peter Jenner, PhD
King’s College London
“Osteopontin as a Regulator of the Inflammatory Response to Nigral Cell Degeneration”

Seung-Jae Lee, PhD
The Parkinson’s Institute
“Intracellular Trafficking Dysfunction Caused by Alpha-synuclein Aggregation”

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD
UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
“Role of Delta FOSB in the Development of L dopa-induced Dsykinesia in a Non-human Primate Model of PD”

Kalipada Pahan, PhD
University of Nebraska Medical Center
“NBD peptides in MPTP Mouse Mode”

Leo J. Pallanck, PhD
University of Washington
“Analysis of Genetic Factors Influencing Alpha-synuclein”

Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
“Biomarker Discovery in Parkinson’s Disease”

Ian J. Reynolds, PhD
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
“Mitochondrial Trafficking in Dopaminergic Neuron Injur”

Michael A. Schwarzschild, MD, PhD
Massachusetts General Hospital
“Adenosine A2A Receptors in a Mouse Model of PD Dyskinesia”

Michael Sierks, PhD
Arizona State University
“Morphology Specific Antibodies as Potential Therapeutic”

Janusz B. Suszkiw, PhD
University of Cincinatti College of Medicine
“Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Nicotine in PD”

Peter Werner, PhD
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
“Transgenic Mouse Model of Proteosome Dysfunction in PD”

Renping Zhou, PhD
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
“Development of the Midbrain Dopaminergic Pathways”

Xiaoxi Zhuang, PhD
The University of Chicago
“In Vivo Investigation of DJ–1 function in DJ-1 Knockout Mice”

In addition to The Michael J. Fox Foundation, contributors to the program include: the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, National Parkinson Foundation, The Parkinson Alliance and the Parkinson’s Unity Walk, the Parkinson Association of the Sacramento Region, the Parkinson Foundation of the Heartland, and Lawrence County Parkinson's Association.