August 13, 2007

Study into the cause of Parkinson’s disease

Dr. Lynn Bedford of the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Nottingham. Has been awarded £400,000 from the Parkinson’s Disease Society to research the causes of the disease. The award comes from the Career Development Awards Scheme; this has been set up to fund some of the countries most talented researchers in the field.

The award will be funding a five year study into understanding the reasons for the causes of Parkinson’s Disease, in particular the reason why the nerve cells die. It is expected that the study will be able to help in the development of new drugs, which it is hoped will eventually get to the point where they can stop the nerve cell death.

In the UK alone there are around 120,000 people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and this figure is added to every year by another 10,000 people. It is thought that this is a disease that effects people over sixty, which in the main is true, however one in twenty of all those diagnosed with the disease is under forty!

Source [Heath]

Filed Under Uncategorized