Ten year study
The UK’s population is ageing and with it comes an increased risk of developing age-related diseases such as Parkinson’s. About 70% of dopamine producing brain cells will have been lost by the time a sufferer visits the doctor, with symptoms that include difficulties with movement and a resting tremor. A progressive neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson’s affects about 120,000 people in the UK.

Dr Richard Wade-Martins and his team at Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre, are leading a groundbreaking large-scale study aimed at finding cures for the disease. The project aims to recruit 2,000 Parkinson’s patients in the next five years and will continue for the next ten years.

Protective therapy
Patients are enthusiastic to help and even though it may not help them, it will help people who get the disease in the future. Wade-Martins hopes their research can develop predictive indicators about when the disease will occur. As he says, ‘all patients are degenerating and getting slowly worse and the earlier you can arrest the disease the more beneficial it will be.’

‘Like all research it takes a long time,’ he continues. ‘The second challenge will be to develop drugs and treatments to correct the problem with these cells. This has to be taken through animal models and eventually into human clinical trial. It’s a long process, but to make models of the neurones in the dish in the lab (and they are the same as those dying and degenerating in the brain of the patient) is a great achievement.’