What is Parkinson's?

Parkinson's UK

Parkinson's UK is the operating name of the Parkinson's Disease Society of the United Kingdom. A registered charity in England and Wales (258197) and in Scotland (SC037554)

Edinburgh Research Interest Group

Research towards a cure is a principal aim of Parkinson's UK and surveys confirm that the overwhelming majority of members support this. However despite this general support, relatively few members actively engage in research-related activities – other than fund raising. Also the amount of understanding by most members of the detail, scale and progress of research by the Society and worldwide seems fairly limited. Given the complexity of the subject (despite the excellent dissemination work of the Society) this is perhaps not surprising. So a general aim is to increase the number of members actively engaged in research activities of some sort and to raise awareness of research projects and outcomes.

The objectives of the Group are:

To provide opportunities for members with an interest in Parkinson's research to meet, communicate, work together and generally further the cause of research.
To encourage and develop all members’ interest in research.

The Edinburgh Parkinson's Lecture 2012

The eminent Cambridge neuroscientist, Professor Roger Barker, accepted a joint invitation from the Edinburgh Branch, the Lothian Parkinson's Service Advisory Group and the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, and gave an outstanding public lecture on 8th May, 2012, at the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, entitled

How close are we to solving the problem of what goes wrong in Parkinson's?

Downloads

You can download:

the flyer for the meeting by clicking here
the slideshow as a pdf file or as powerpoint
the audio recording of the lecture, in mp3 format: please note that some sections involve more than one file

Introduction: click here
Lecture: part1 part2 part3 part4 part5 part6
Discussion: part1 part2 part3 part4
Closing remarks: click here

a summary of the lecture by a Branch member

Some comments on the lecture

"What an inspirational talk….thank you so much for helping organise that." FT Edinburgh

"I attended Tuesday’s lecture by Professor Roger Barker at the Royal College of Physicians and would like to thank everyone at Edinburgh Parkinson’s for organising it and bringing such an eminent, inspirational speaker to the city. His presentation was fascinating and highly informative and was much appreciated by all who attended." SH Edinburgh

"Thank you for an excellent session tonight" HS Edinburgh

"Well done organising such an interesting and well-run event, thank you all very much indeed." MM Edinburgh

Other Recent Meetings

Nutrition

A member-led discussion meeting was held on Saturday 10 December 2011 on the topic of Nutrition. Some references used for the meeting:

Medication Workshop

A very successful and well-attended medication workshop was held on Wednesday 22 February 2012.

Discussions were led by Alison Stewart, Senior Parkinson’s Nurse at the Royal Victoria Hospital, and Alison Thomson, Senior Clinical Pharmacist in the Department of Neurosciences at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh.

You can download a pdf of Alison Stewart's talk by clicking here.

Meeting Notes and Reports

Research Presentation

Dr Anton Gartner from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression at the University of Dundee gave a talk entitled

Exploiting and Exploring simple non-vertebrate animal models for Parkinson's research, what do we learn?

on Saturday, 24 March 2012, at the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh.

Dr Gartner has kindly made the overheads from his presentation available and you can download a pdf file of his talk by clicking this link.

Newsletters

We plan to produce a newsletter three times a year. You can download the pdf versions by clicking on the links below.

Scottish research projects by Parkinson's UK

Parkinson's UK supports research projects at a number of Scottish universities. Below is a clickable list linked to project summaries in plain English.

An updated list can be downloaded as a pdf file by clicking this link.

Research News

Gene Therapy Treatment shows promise

Parkinson's UK director of research, Dr Kieran Breen, was interviewed on Sky News at lunchtime on April 12, commenting on their story about Sheila Roy, a lady with Parkinson's who is taking part in a trial of the gene therapy ProSavin.

Read the full story and watch the Sky News clip at the Parkinson's UK web site by following this link.

Parkinson's disease stopped in animal model

UCLA professor of neurology Jeff Bronstein and UCLA associate professor of neurology Gal Bitan, along with their colleagues, report the development of a novel compound known as a "molecular tweezer," which in a living animal model blocked α-synuclein aggregates from forming, stopped the aggregates' toxicity and, further, reversed aggregates in the brain that had already formed. And the tweezers accomplished this without interfering with normal brain function. The research appears in the current online edition of the journal Neurotherapeutics.

Alternative theories on the causes of Parkinson's

Might Parkinson's be caused by physical compression of a particular part of the brain from a mis-aligned cranial artery? This is the suggestion in a paper published in the open-access journal Neurology International last year.

Tai chi for better balance

Results published in The New England Journal of Medicine in February suggest that tai chi may help people with Parkinson's improve their balance and movement control.

In the study, 195 people with Parkinson's were divided into 3 exercise groups for twice weekly classes. One group did stretching, one did resistance training, and the third group practised tai chi.

After 6 months, those in the tai chi group performed better when they were tested on strength, movement control, balance, stride length and reach.

Resistance training also offered some benefits. And both the tai chi and resistance training groups had fewer falls than the stretching group.

Genetic Parkinson's disease brain cells made in lab

The BBC reports that scientists in the US have successfully made human brain cells in the lab that are an exact replica of genetically caused Parkinson's disease. A news item dated 8 February 2012 on the BBC website quotes Dr Jian Feng who led the investigations: "This is the first time that human dopamine neurons have ever been generated from Parkinson's disease patients with parkin mutations". Further information may be obtained by consulting the journal Nature Communications, volume 3, article 668.

Cure Parkinson's Action Group

The Cure Parkinson’s Action Group (CPAG) is a new initiative spearheaded by the trustees of Parkinson’s UK. The objective for this group is to bring together people with different interests in Parkinson’s research (including academics, charities and drug companies) in order to develop a co-ordinated strategy. So that this is informed by people living with Parkinson’s two members of the Research Support Network, Mary Brightwell and Richard Windle, were invited to join the CPAG steering group. The first meeting was held November 2011 and the discussion focussed on clinical trials where there are a number of shortcomings in the current regulatory system. There is a post on the Parkinson's UK Forum, giving more details.

Delivering Neuroprotection

The latest issue of SPRING Times, vol 62, highlights some pioneering work involving Dr Roger Barker and his Cambridge colleague, Professor John Sinclair. In a paper published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine on December 19, 2011, they report on a novel neuroprotective therapy for Parkinson's disease. To view the abstract of their article, click here.

Success for Edinburgh Researchers

For the first time Parkinson's UK-funded scientists have grown new nerve cells from a person with one of the most rapidly progressing inherited forms of Parkinson's. This research, led by the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with UCL (University College London), has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Lead researcher Dr Tilo Kunath works in the Institute for Stem Cell Research, now known as the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, at the University of Edinburgh. Click here to hesr him in discussion with Mary Warnock on a recent BBC World Service programme 'The Forum' or listen to an extract from the programme.

Stem cells transformed into brain cells to treat Parkinson's disease

New York researchers led by Dr Lorenz Studer have reported in the journal Nature on recent work on transforming stem cells into brain cells in an animal model. Click here to read a report in the Guardian dated 6th November, 2011. For those interested in more technical details, the abstract of the Nature article may be found by clicking here.

Anne Rowling Clinic, Edinburgh

Building work has begun on the new Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. The clinic will be an addition to the front of Chancellor's Building at Little France and is due to be completed in mid 2012. The clinic will focus on patient-based studies to help find treatments that could slow the progression of Multiple Sclerosis and other progressive, incurable diseases such as Motor Neurone Disease, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. It was established in 2010 following a £10M donation from JK Rowling and is named in memory of Ms Rowling's mother, who died from MS at the age of 45.