The Monument Discovery Award
The Monument Discovery Award is our biggest ever research
grant at £5million over 5 years.
This
groundbreaking project is funded by The Monument Trust, one of the
Sainsbury Family Trusts. It brings together a world-class team of
researchers at the University of Oxford to accelerate progress
towards a cure for Parkinson's.
Despite major research breakthroughs, there are still no
treatments that can slow, stop or reverse the progression of
Parkinson's.
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News story: £5million new funding to
find a cure for Parkinson's
Meet the Monument Discovery Award
team
Groundbreaking project
The Monument Discovery Award ultimately aims to find a cure
for Parkinson's - to develop treatments that allow everyone to
live free from the symptoms of the condition.
Diagnosing Parkinson's before the earliest movement symptoms
appear, combined with more effective treatments that tackle the
root causes of nerve cell death, will be crucial steps towards a
cure.
The Monument Discovery Award
team will focus upon 3 central themes of research to accelerate
progress towards a cure for Parkinson's.
Theme 1: What happens inside the nerve cells that die in
Parkinson's?
The research team will look for rare
genetic changes that may increase a person's risk of
developing Parkinson's.
They will then investigate what these faulty genes do
inside human nerve cells. This will help them to work out why
certain nerve cells are lost in Parkinson's.
Pinpointing what goes wrong inside nerve cells may lead to the
development of new treatments that can help the remaining
nerve cells survive and work for longer inside the brain.
Theme 2: Better animal models that truly reflect Parkinson's
Most current animal
models are created by damaging the nerve cells that are lost
in Parkinson's. But this does not reflect the slow development of
the human condition.
The research team will use key genes identified in Theme 1 to
develop mouse and rat models that more closely resemble human
Parkinson's. Studying these models will provide crucial clues
to how Parkinson's develops inside the ageing brain.
These new models will be vital for testing new treatments that
may be able to slow, halt or even reverse the development of
Parkinson's.
Theme 3: Diagnosing Parkinson's earlier - before the symptoms
develop
At present,
there is no definitive test for Parkinson's and no way of
identifying people who are greater risk of developing the
condition.
Theme 3 will recruit 1,700 people with Parkinson's,
300 people without Parkinson's and 300 people 'at risk'
of developing Parkinson's.
Looking for subtle differences in DNA from skin cells,
brain imaging, and collecting samples of blood and cerebral-spinal
fluid from the people, will help the team find new ways to spot
Parkinson's earlier.
Developing tests that can diagnose Parkinson's at an earlier
stage, coupled with treatments that tackle the root problems, would
provide the best chance of protecting the remaining nerve cells and
slowing or stopping Parkinson's.
How you can help
We are closer than ever to finding a cure, but we need your
help.
Our research is totally dependent on voluntary donations.
One
donated brain can be used in up to 50 research studies. Help us
make 2010 a breakthrough year by signing up.
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