Tag: january

Monthly Research Review: Jaunary 2020

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At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during January 2020.

The post is divided into seven parts based on the type of research: Basic biology, Disease mechanism, Clinical research, New clinical trials, Clinical trial news, Other news, and Review articles/videos

So, what happened during January 2020?

In world news:

January 6th – From the only in London files – this was “No Trousers Tube Ride 2020” day (don’t ask me to explain… I wouldn’t know where to begin – click here to read more about this).

January 23rd – The Chinese city of Wuhan was placed under quarantine, in which all public transport in and out of the city was suspended in efforts to control the spread of a new coronavirus, designated 2019-nCoV.

January 26th – In the build up to BREXIT, the UK presented the new 50 pence coin… with a gramatical error. Three million coins bearing the slogan “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations” are due to enter circulation from 31 January (Click here to read more about this).

January 30th – The Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope on Hawaii released new footage of the surface of the sun showing features as small as 30km across.(Click here to read more about this).

31st January – As the bush fires in Australia have continued over January, a state of emergency was declared in the Canberra region, with fires reaching suburbs just south of the capital (Click here to read more about this).

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In January 2020, there were 849 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (8195 for all of 2019 – updated number). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review: Jaunary 2020” →

Monthly Research Review – January 2018

~ Simon ~ 22 Comments

Today’s (experimental) post provides something new – an overview of some of the major bits of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available in January 2018.

In January of 2018, the world was rocked by news that New Zealand had become the 11th country in the world to put a rocket into orbit (no really, I’m serious. Not kidding here – Click here to read more). Firmly cementing their place in the rankings of world superpowers. In addition, they became only the second country to have a prime minister get pregnant during their term in office (in this case just 3 months into her term in office – Click here to read more about this).

A happy New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardine

In major research news, NASA and NOAA announced that 2017 was the hottest year on record globally (without an El Niño), and among the top three hottest years overall (Click here for more on this), and scientists in China reported in the journal Cell that they had created the first monkey clones, named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua (Click here for that news)

Zhong Zhong the cute little clone. Source: BBC

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – January 2018” →

2017 – Year in Review: A good vintage

~ Simon ~ 13 Comments

At the end of each year, it is a useful practise to review the triumphs (and failures) of the past 12 months. It is an exercise of putting everything into perspective. 

2017 has been an incredible year for Parkinson’s research.

And while I appreciate that statements like that will not bring much comfort to those living with the condition, it is still important to consider and appreciate what has been achieved over the last 12 months.

In this post, we will try to provide a summary of the Parkinson’s-related research that has taken place in 2017 (Be warned: this is a VERY long post!)

The number of research reports and clinical trial studies per year since 1817

As everyone in the Parkinson’s community is aware, in 2017 we were observing the 200th anniversary of the first description of the condition by James Parkinson (1817). But what a lot of people fail to appreciate is how little research was actually done on the condition during the first 180 years of that period.

The graphs above highlight the number of Parkinson’s-related research reports published (top graph) and the number of clinical study reports published (bottom graph) during each of the last 200 years (according to the online research search engine Pubmed – as determined by searching for the term “Parkinson’s“).

PLEASE NOTE, however, that of the approximately 97,000 “Parkinson’s“-related research reports published during the last 200 years, just under 74,000 of them have been published in the last 20 years.

That means that 3/4 of all the published research on Parkinson’s has been conducted in just the last 2 decades.

And a huge chunk of that (almost 10% – 7321 publications) has been done in 2017 only.

So what happened in 2017? Continue reading “2017 – Year in Review: A good vintage” →