We have incredibly exciting news to report!

Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, the Blechman Foundation funded a significant portion of an amazingly productive research project on the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Medical research rarely gets better than this!

On July 25, 2018, the journal Science Translational Medicine published an article based on research directed by J. Timothy Greenamyre, MD, PhD, who is the Chair of the Blechman Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee, reporting on the discovery that a gene is the cause of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in most people.

Scientists already knew that mutations in a gene called LRRK2 caused PD in about 3% to 4% of patients.  This new study shows that, for the first time, the LRRK2 gene, independent of mutations, causes PD in about 90% of patients. In other words, nearly all PD patients have an unmutated LRRK2 gene. The study shows that the unmutated LRRK2 gene causes PD, too. As a result, a drug that can inhibit the LRRK2 gene in its unmutated form may be useful in treating nearly all PD patients. 

More good news
Drugs already in the pipeline to treat patients with PD tied to a mutated LRRK2 gene can also treat many, if not all, of the other patients with PD. Such a drug will be able to slow or halt the inevitable progression of PD. According to published reports, one such drug is made by Denali Therapeutics and is in clinical trials.

This scientific work was supported by research grants from the Blechman Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and others. To see the full version of the research findings, click here.  Additional coverage of the research findings are also available on STAT and ResearchGate.