The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Experts piecing together complex genetic puzzle
PROFESSOR ALESSI, director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, said: “Now that we have identified this pathway, the key next step will be to identify the nature of these damaged proteins that are normally removed by Parkin.
“Although further studies are required, our findings also suggest that drugs that switch this pathway on could be used to treat Parkinson’s.”
Parkinson’s UK director of research and innovation Dr Kieran Breen said: “We are now beginning to piece together this complex genetic puzzle which will pave the way towards new and better treatments for Parkinson’s.
“Current treatments only mask symptoms by boosting the levels of dopamine in the brain and they cannot slow or stop the development of the condition.
“This breakthrough offers real hope for developing treatments that tackle the root causes of Parkinson’s by targeting the genes involved in the condition, which could have the potential for halting Parkinson’s in its tracks,” added Dr Breen.
The research was funded by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome trust, Parkinson’s UK, the J. Macdonald Menzies Charitable Trust and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
The research into the disease is published in the latest edition of the journal Open Biology.
The paper was co-authored with Dr Helen Walden from Cancer Research UK’S London Research Institute.
The latest figures show that 127,000 people in the UK have Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological condition for which there is currently no cure.
There are around 90 ground-breaking research projects worth £15 million being funded across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.