$240k to accelerate Parkinson’s research
New Zealand-based research into potential treatments for Parkinson’s disease has been given a six-figure funding boost.
The Livingstone Estate has donated
$240,000 to the Neuro Research Charitable Trust (NRCT) to help progress the discovery of drugs to combat the disease.
Levodopa, the main drug used to treat Parkinson’s, dates to the 1970s and doesn’t slow the disease’s progression.
The NRCT, which was founded by Hamilton businessman Bernie Crosby, has been working in partnership with Auckland University to study the earliest changes that occur in the brain as a result of Parkinson’s disease.
To date, that work has revealed how Parkinson’s can spread from cell to cell in cultured human brain cells.
Livingstone Estate trustee John Dobson said the $240,000 donation brought the estate’s total contribution to the NRCT to
$540,000 and helped honour the wishes of his late aunty, Margaret Livingstone.
That $540,000 will go toward the NRCT’s pledge of $900,000 over three years to the Centre for Brain Research based at Auckland University. Livingstone died in 2016 and left her estate to medical research.
Margaret Livingstone spent the last years of her life in Hamilton.
Dobson said he was inspired after visiting the Centre for Brain Research.
‘‘Since Aunty Margaret didn’t have children, she wanted to make sure that her hard-earned money went to a really good cause.
‘‘After looking around I couldn’t find anything better than the Centre for Brain Research and what they’re doing,’’ Dobson said.
The Livingstone Estate’s initial $300,000 donation is being used to help accelerate research into ways to slow down or prevent the cellular spread of Lewy bodies, the pathological protein that cause’s Parkinson’s disease.
The additional $240,000 will be used to progress the discovery of new drug
Professor Maurice Curtis
treatments.
‘‘I’m a sort of an impatient type of guy. I like things to happen quickly,’’ Dobson said.
‘‘Research seems to be moving forward but I want to see a solution. When I found out that further funding could progress the discovery of a drug I decided to add another $240,000.’’
Auckland University Associate Professor in Anatomy Maurice Curtis said research by the Centre of Brain Research was being carried out using human brain tissue.
‘‘We’re able to grow cells from the brains of people who donated their brains to the brain bank at Auckland University ... to see how Parkinson’s cells differ from normal cells,’’ Curtis said.
‘‘We can use those cells that are transferring Lewy bodies and test drugs on them.’’
Curtis said researchers’ ultimate goal is to develop a drug which slows down or stops the spread of Lewy bodies. Part of that goal is to allow early intervention.
Parkinson’s disease is caused by the loss of dopamine producing cells in the region of the brain known as the substantia nigra.
Currently, the treatment of Parkinson’s happens late.
It can be six to 10 years after the brain has been effected before a person shows the overt symptoms of Parkinson’s: movement disorders, difficulties in ordering their day, and sometimes confusion.
‘‘That’s why we are interested to find out where in the brain is affected first and what those brain changes are,’’ Curtis said.
‘‘We know that Lewy bodies show up early on in the olfactory bulb which is the area of the brain that allows us a sense of smell. The problem is we don’t know all the mechanisms by which the Lewy bodies spread. That’s part of the research project: understanding how these Lewy bodies are being spread. If we can slow that process, we believe it can lead to better outcomes.’’
Bringing a new drug on to the market takes between 10 to 15 years.
It’s possible that an existing drug could be re-purposed and be made available much sooner.
‘‘With research, none of the knowledge is ever wasted,’’ Curtis said.
‘‘It’s a case of the global community working together to understand what actually is going wrong in Parkinson’s disease.’’