# # # # Numerous epidemiological studies have indicated that smoking might have a protective effect against developing Parkinson’s. As a result, researchers have long explored the neuroprotective potential of various ingredients in cigarettes. One of the active chemicals in smoking is nicotine, and preclinical research has reported that this stimulant has neuroprotective properties. Unfortunately, the results of a large clinical trial assessing nicotine treatment in people with Parkinson’s (called the NIC-PD trial) has not been able to demonstrate any protection. If anything, the results suggest that nicotine treatment made Parkinson’s worse. In today’s post, we will look at the epidemiological and preclinical data leading up to the NIC-PD study, we’ll review the results of the trial, and discuss what all of this means for Parkinson’s.  # # # #

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Tavia Gordon. Source: Projecteuclid

In 1950, Dr Tavia Gordon noticed something interesting.

He observed that while the overall mortality rates for Japanese men in the USA and Japan were very similar, the incidence of heart disease was significantly lower in Japan. When he looked at Japanese men in Hawaii, he noticed that they were halfway between the other two cohorts.

He described his findings in this report:

Title: Mortality experience among the Japanese in the United States, Hawaii, and Japan.
Author: Gordon T.
Journal: Public Health Rep (1896). 1957 Jun;72(6):543-53.
PMID: 13432134              (This report is OPEN ACCESS if you would like to read it)

Importantly, his observations led to the setting up of a major longitudinal study which became known as the Honolulu Heart Study.

Interesting, but what does this have to do with Parkinson’s?

Continue reading “The NIC-PD trial results” →

# # # # At the end of each year, it is a useful process to take stock and review what we have learnt over the last 12 months. 2023 has been an extremely busy year for Parkinson’s research, with a lot of clinical trial results and new insights.  In today’s post, we will consider three big Parkinson’s-related research takeaways of 2023 (based on our humble opinions here at the SoPD), and then we will provide an extended overview of some of the important pieces of news from the last 12 months (Be warned: this will be a rather long post). # # # #

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Source: Reddit

2023 was a year that reminded me of Ken Burn’s quote:

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but human nature remains the same.” 

Sam Clemens wrote something similar about history rhyming, but Burns is more on the mark. For the first time in three years, it felt like the heavy weight of the COVID-19 pandemic was lifted off us in 2023 and life could get back to normal.

But what is normal?

Mainstream media bombarded us with news of the ongoing war in Ukraine and then a fresh outbreak of violence in the middle east which threatens to spill over into much wider conflict. If all we did all day was keep track of these sorts of events, we would build up a pretty bleak picture of human nature.

Ukraine or Gaza? Source: Wikipedia

But there are other aspects to human nature that are more inspiring and can give us hope. Key among them is a desire to discover new things and perform amazing feats of scientific/engineering achievement. In 2023, these included:

• Landing a space craft on the southern pole of the moon, releasing a rover, and finding the remnants of an ocean of magma that helped form the surface of the moon (Click here to read more about this).
• Getting the first CRISPR-based treatment for sickle cell disease approved for clinical use (Click here to read more about this).
• Inventing floating ‘artificial leaves’ that can generate clean fuels from sunlight and water (Click here to read more about this).
• Growing rice in soil that had been collected on Mars and returned to Earth (Click here to read more about this).
• Launching a 400 foot (121 meter) high & 30 foot (9 meter) wide SpaceX Starship into space (Click here to read more about this).
• Developing an AI that found drugs that can combat drug-resistant infections (Click here to read more about this).
• Engineering a new non-invasive brain-reading method that is able to translate a person’s neural activity into a continuous stream of text (Click here to read more about this).
• Conducting the first evolution experiment of synthetic ‘minimal cells’ – JCVI-syn3B bacterial cells, whose genomes were trimmed to just 493 essential genes and are the smallest of any known free-living organism – and discovering that life finds a way (Click here to read more about this).
• Successfully returning samples collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid 101955 Bennu, back to Earth. Understand that OSIRIS-REx successfully touched down on Bennu at a distance of 200 million miles (320 million kilometers) from Earth, and Bennu was travelling at 63,000 miles per hour (101,000 kilometers per hour!!!) as it orbited the sun (Click here to read more about this).

There are many more examples of these kinds of achievements that made 2023 an amazing year, and give me hope about human nature. And here I think of another Ken Burns quote:

“I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we’re lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it’s worse than fear – it’s active disengagement”

As we look to 2024, let us all be actively engaged.

Below is a list of some of the more interesting Parkinson’s research findings of the year – by month, but starting with the top three according to the team here at SoPD HQ.

# EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of this blog is the director of research at the medical research charity Cure Parkinson’s. For the purpose of transparency and to eliminate any sense of bias, where Cure Parkinson’s is a funder of the research it shall be noted. #

The 3 main SOPD highlights in Parkinson’s-related research for 2023

(in no particular order – just our opinion)

Continue reading “Year in review: 2023” →

# # # # 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 December 2023. The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research: Top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news Articles of general interest Basic biology Disease mechanism Clinical research New clinical trials Clinical trial news Conferences/lectures Other news Review articles/videos # # # #

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So, what happened during December 2023?

In world news:

December 4th – Tech giant IBM revealed two quantum computers: One (dubbed ‘Condor’) is the second largest ever made  and the other (called ‘Heron’) produces fewer errors than any quantum computer the company has built so far (Click here to read more about this).

 

December 7th – Quantum entanglement of molecules was achieved for the first time, by researchers at Princeton University (Click here to read more about this).

 

December 12th – At the COP28 (“FLOP28”) climate summit in Dubai, a “consensus” was reached for countries to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the first such agreement in the conference’s 30-year history (?!?!). Great, but the transition is specifically for energy systems (meaning it completely excludes plastics, transport or agriculture). And these are the people who are going to save us…

 

December 13th – Scientists report that the contents of the sample-return mission of the OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu revealed organic molecules as well as unknown materials which require more study to have a better idea of their composition and makeup.

 

December 31 – Queen Margrethe II of Denmark announced her abdication (effective January 14, 2024) after 52 years on the throne:

 

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

In December 2023, there were 1,134 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (11,416 for all of 2023 so far). 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-December 2023” →

# # # # 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 November 2023. The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research: Top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news Articles of general interest Basic biology Disease mechanism Clinical research New clinical trials Clinical trial news Conferences/lectures Other news Review articles/videos # # # #

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So, what happened during November 2023?

In world news:

November 1st – The Beatles (I kid you not) released “Now and Then“, the band’s last ever song, featuring restored vocals by John Lennon (1940–1980), as well as guitar tracks by George Harrison (1943–2001).

 

November 2nd – Zoliflodacin, a first-in-class antibiotic being developed for treating drug-resistant ‘super-gonorrhoea’ presented positive results in Phase 3 clinical testing. The development of this agent has been led by the non-profit organization GARDP, and if approved, zoliflodacin will be the first new antibiotic for treating gonorrhoea in decades (Click here to read more about this).

 

November 12th – Researchers at Cambridge University present a new floating artificial leaf which can turn sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into synthetic fuel (Click here to read more about this).

 

November 16th – Casgevy, a world-first gene therapy that aims to cure sickle-cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia, is approved by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, becoming the first drug using CRISPR to be licensed (Click here to read more about this).

 

November 28th – the passing of Charlie Munger was a sad moment for the author of this blog. A copy of “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” sits beside my bed. If you have never heard of Charlie, take a moment & listen to his “Psychology of Human Misjudgment” – wisdom, humor and not a word wasted:

(You should also listen to him roasting people for 5 minutes straight)

November 30th – Researchers reported that breeding chinstrap penguins nod off more than 10,000 times per day, engaging in tiny bouts of slow-wave sleep (lasting on average only 4 seconds, but resulting in the accumulation of >11 hours of sleep)

 

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

In November 2023, there were 1,271 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (10,282 for all of 2023 so far). 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 – November 2023” →

# # # # 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 September 2023. The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research: Top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news Articles of general interest Basic biology Disease mechanism Clinical research New clinical trials Clinical trial news Conferences/lectures Other news Review articles/videos # # # #

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So, what happened during September 2023?

In world news:

September 8th – The Rugby World cup started!

September 10th – Storm Daniel, a Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone kills at least 5,000 people, with a further 10,000 to 100,000 reported missing. In the city of Derna in Libya, two dams collapse, resulting in a quarter of the city being destroyed.

 

September 14th – NASA’s independent study team investigating the nature and origins of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP, or UFOs in the old parlance) released their long-awaited report. The committee shared their preliminary observations in May, finding that existing data and eyewitness reports are insufficient to draw firm conclusions (Click here to read more about this)

 

September 14th – the 33rd Ig Nobel Prizes were handed out – the team that won the medicine prize used cadavers to assess if there was an equal number of hairs in each of a person’s nostrils:

September 29th – NASA reports that their rover “Perseverance” captured images of a 60 meter-wide dust-filled Martian whirlwind on the 30th August (Click here to read more about this and see the video footage)

 

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

In September 2023, there were 880 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (8,259 for all of 2023 so far). 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 – September 2023” →

# # # # Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative condition that is diagnosed and monitored based on clinical observations and scoring systems – both of which are not perfect and subjective. Biomarkers (a biological molecule found in bodily fluids or tissues that is an indicator of a normal or abnormal processes) represent an important development for medicine as they provide assurance and quantitative measures of disease, aiding the diagnostic and treatment process. Recently there has been a lot of new research highlighting possible biomarkers for Parkinson’s, including proteins associated with the synthesis of dopamine (a chemical which is severely reduced in the brains of people with Parkinson’s). In today’s post, we will discuss what a biomarker is and review some new research on a potential biomarker for ‘Lewy body disease’. # # # #

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The search for biomarkers. Source: NIH

2023 is quickly becoming the year of potential biomarkers for Parkinson’s. There has been a lot of new research in this space.

For example, earlier this year, the Michael J Fox Foundation and collaborators reported new data regarding the alpha synuclein seeding assay (Click here to read a previous SoPD post on this topic).

Tests that can clearly define and track medical conditions over time are critical to developing better treatments and would certainly be invaluable in Parkinson’s research.

And this week we saw researchers publish further data, highlighting another potential biomarker.

What did they report?

Continue reading “DOPA de-car-box-yl-ase” →

# # # # 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 August 2023. The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research: Top 8 pieces of Parkinson’s news Articles of general interest Basic biology Disease mechanism Clinical research New clinical trials Clinical trial news Conferences/lectures Other news Review articles/videos # # # #

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So, what happened during August 2023?

In world news:

August 1- The world’s oceans reached a new record high temperature of 20.96 °C, exceeding the previous record in 2016.

 

August 8th – Christopher Lunsford (artist name: Oliver Anthony) released the single “Rich Men North of Richmond” independently, and it debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 after going viral on YouTube:

 

August 14th – Researchers reported the first ever image of quantum entanglement (Click here and here to read more about this).

 

August 19th – As 1/4 of people going to the beach in the United Kingdom are avoiding swimming due to raw sewage releases, the UK Environment Agency (whose funding has been cut by 50% over the last 10 years – source) announced that nationwide annual health check of England’s water bodies which used to take place annually, will now take six years to complete (Click here to read more about this).

 

August 23rd – India’s Chandrayaan-3 becomes the first spacecraft to land near the south pole of the Moon, carrying a lunar lander named Vikram and a lunar rover named Pragyan.

 

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

In August 2023, there were 831 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (7,379 for all of 2023 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 8 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – August 2023” →

# # # # The discovery of genetic risk factors for Parkinson’s has been very useful for the research community as they point towards associated biological pathways that could potentially be targeted for therapeutic intervention. They also represent a topic of concern for the Parkinson’s community, who worry about passing on possible risk to their children and subsequent generations. The penetrance (which refers to the proportion of people with a particular genetic variant who ever actually exhibit signs and symptoms of a particular condition) of many of these risk factors has, however, been found to be mixed, which has helped to confuse the matter.  Recently, researchers have been exploring assays and biomarkers related to some of these genetic risk factors to see if we can determine who is likely to go on and develop Parkinson’s compared to “non-manifesting carriers” of the genetic risk factors.  In today’s post, we will discuss what is meant by terms like “penetrance” and “non-manifesting carriers”, and we will review some of the latest research in this area. # # # #

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Source: Businesstoday

This year represents the 25th anniversary since the discovery that tiny variations in a region of DNA called the “PARKIN gene” may increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s.

On the 9th April, 1998, this report was published in the journal Nature:

Title: Mutations in the parkin gene cause autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism.
Authors: Kitada T, Asakawa S, Hattori N, Matsumine H, Yamamura Y, Minoshima S, Yokochi M, Mizuno Y, Shimizu N
Journal: Nature. 1998 Apr 9; 392(6676):605-8
PMID: 9560156

This study highlighted 5 cases of ‘juvenile’ Parkinsonism from three unrelated Japanese families, in which genetic variations were found in the PARKIN gene. This finding came less than a year after the first genetic risk factor for Parkinson’s – in the alpha synuclein gene – had been announced (Click here to read a SoPD post about this).

It was an exciting time for Parkinson’s research as these new risk factors were pointing towards particular biological pathways that could be explored in the context of Parkinson’s (and manipulated for potentially therapeutic purposes).

Over the next 10-15 years, there was a genetic gold rush as researchers identified over 80 regions of DNA in which genetic variations (tiny alterations in the G,A,T & C coding) that increased one’s risk of developing PD (Click here to read a SoPD post on this topic).

But rather than being a genetic disease (a condition driven by a specific genetic cause), it quickly became apparent that the level of penetrance in Parkinson’s was not 100%, and questions started to be asked as to why.

What do you mean by “penetrance”?

Continue reading “Manifesting non-manifesting carriers” →

# # # # 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 July 2023. The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research: Top 6 pieces of Parkinson’s news Articles of general interest Basic biology Disease mechanism Clinical research New clinical trials Clinical trial news Conferences/lectures Other news Review articles/videos # # # #

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So, what happened during July 2023?

In world news:

July 4th – Toyota announced the development of a new type of solid-state battery for electric vehicles that will allow them to travel 1200km (745 miles) and charges within 10 minutes (Click here to read more about this).

 

July 14th – The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced it will begin an ongoing strike against the major film and TV studios in protest of low compensation, the lack of ownership of their work, and the threat of generative AI on their jobs.

 

July 20th – The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup started in Australia and New Zealand.

 

July 19th – Astronomers report the discovery of a bizarre ‘two-faced’ star, with one side made up of hydrogen and the other consisting of helium. The object, designated ZTF J203349.8+322901.1 (nicknamed “Janus”), is a white dwarf located about 1,000 light years away (Click here to read more about this).

 

July 23rd – Below is an image of the interior ceiling of the cathedral in Odesa (Ukraine) before Russian bombs struck it on this date… high tech, strategic targeting indeed (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 July 2023, there were 1,024 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (6,548 for all of 2023 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 6 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review-July 2023” →