Duke’s Research Team Joins Global Network to Unravel the Complexity of Parkinson’s Disease
Andrew West (left) and Alberto Bartesaghi. (Photos courtesy of West and Bartesaghi)
A research team co-led by Alberto Bartesaghi, associate professor of Computer Science, Biochemistry, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been selected to join the Collaborative Research Network (CRN), an international, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional network working to address high-priority research questions about Parkinson's disease, through a $9 million grant awarded by Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), in partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF).
The team is led by Andrew West, professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke. Along with Bartesaghi, co-leaders include Mario Borgnia from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Lenora Higginbotham from Emory University, and Laura Volpicelli-Daley from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Over the next three years, West’s team will help address critical knowledge gaps in Parkinson’s disease by harnessing the latest breakthroughs in cryo-electron microscopy and mass spectrometry to provide an unprecedented vantage into specific changes in protein structure associated with Parkinson’s disease, which will enable the rapid development of diagnostic assays and new targets for therapeutic interventions.
ASAP is expanding the CRN in partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) to map the biological blueprint of Parkinson’s disease and build a standardized toolkit of global research resources to turn discoveries into treatments. This next phase of the initiative focuses on understanding the heterogeneity of Parkinson’s disease, why it varies across individuals, and advancing discoveries toward more precise diagnostics and future therapies.
This effort includes the generation of novel resources for the global research community to work from a common, high-quality baseline, reducing the technical hurdles that stall drug development. Each project empowers collaborative groups of leading investigators to combine their expertise and tackle high-priority research questions to shorten the timeline from laboratory breakthrough to clinical application.
To learn more about the expanded CRN and explore the funded projects, visit their website.