Cure Parkinson’s announces new role: Head of Pipeline Research

Cure Parkinson’s is delighted to announce that Dr Leah Mursaleen has been appointed to the newly created role, Head of Pipeline Research. The purpose of this role is to speed up and drive forward early-stage research to ensure that novel treatments for potentially slowing/stopping the progression of Parkinson’s are ready to be taken to clinical trial as soon as possible.

Leah’s father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 13 years ago and this was an influencing factor in her decision to join the charity in 2014. In 2020 she took on the role of Research Manager, overseeing research committee business as well as increasing involvement with the planning and writing of the dossiers for the International Linked Clinical Trials (iLCT) programme. This initiative focuses on bringing new treatments to clinical trial for use in Parkinson’s, many of which are already in use to treat other conditions.

Dr Mursaleen’s new role will have a particular focus on progressing early-stage research of compounds evaluated by Cure Parkinson’s International Linked Clinical Trials (iLCT) programme. The iLCT initiative focuses on bringing new potentially disease-modifying treatments to clinical trial for use in Parkinson’s.

Each year the iLCT Committee, which comprises a panel of world-leading scientists and Parkinson’s researchers, meets to evaluate a set of detailed dossiers on therapies that have displayed disease-modifying potential. Their task is to rank and prioritise those that are ready to be taken into clinical trial to be tested as potential new treatments for Parkinson’s. Some of the agents evaluated at this meeting are deemed to show great potential, however further research is required before they are ready to be tested in people with Parkinson’s.

As Head of Pipeline Research, Dr Mursaleen will be tasked with driving forward the progression of this pre-clinical and early-stage iLCT-associated pipeline of research, so that more therapies will be fully ready to be taken to clinical trial stage sooner. Cure Parkinson’s hopes that this proactive approach will further accelerate the journey towards a cure.

Efforts to enhance the International Linked Clinical Trials programme by proactively getting the required research done will definitely help to speed up the process of getting novel disease-modifying therapies into clinical testing for Parkinson’s. I can think of no one better than Leah to lead on that effort. She is world class and has all of the expertise and experience required. We are very lucky to have her!

Dr Simon Stott, Director of Research, Cure Parkinson’s

This new role reflects Cure Parkinson’s commitment to ensure we are investigating every potentially disease-modifying therapy evaluated by the iLCT committee.  Leah is highly skilled and dedicated to finding solutions and will bring her wonderful energy to this work and with that open even more avenues to develop treatments to slow, stop or reverse Parkinson’s.”

Helen Matthews, Deputy CEO, Cure Parkinson’s