The Anavex results
This week some encouraging clinical trial results were announced by a biotech firm called Anavex Life Sciences. The company had been testing their lead experimental therapy – a Sigma-1 receptor agonist called ANAVEX2-73 (also known as blarcamesine) – in 132 people with Parkinson’s disease dementia over a 14 week period. The […]
EJS-ACT PD
This week an announcement was made regarding The Edmond J. Safra Accelerating Clinical Treatments for Parkinson’s Disease (EJS-ACT PD) Initiative. It is hoping to revolutionise the way clinical trials for potentially disease-modifying drugs for Parkinson’s are conducted. The project is focused on the setting up a multi-arm, multi-stage (MAMS) platform for […]
Unmasking LRRK2 and GBA
Connecting genetics and biology is complicated. Researchers around the world have struggled to determine what each functional region of DNA is doing individually, let alone in combination with other regions. And sometimes when the output of combinations is examined, the results can be unexpected. Recently, researchers looked at the consequences of […]
UCB at ANN looks A-OK
Alpha synuclein is one of the most common proteins in our brains and it has long been associated with Parkinson’s. The protein appears to clump together forming dense clusters ( or “aggregates“) in the Parkinsonian brain, and this may be related to the progressive neurodegeneration. Researchers have been desperately seeking small […]
What is GDNF without RET?
Neurotrophic factors – like Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (or GDNF) – hold great hope for regenerative therapy in Parkinson’s research. New research, however, indicates that simply injecting the protein into the brain may not be enough. Scientists at Rush University Medical Center (in Chicago) conducted a postmortem analysis of brains […]