Grants And Publications

Project:

Are lymphocytes a model of neuronal dysfunction in PD

Institution:

FNI

Year Of Grant:

2012

Illness/Condition:

Parkinsons Disease,

Researcher:

Malcolm Horne

Description:

Test the hypothesis that blood cells die more readily in PD. If this is the case, it means that blood cells, which are more accessible than neurones for research, may be a model of the PD affects of particular secretion by neurones.

Publications:

Federation for European Neurosciences (Berlin): Abnormal secretion of a-synuclein in PD
Shoshanah S Longmuir, Bradley J Turner He Li, Jun-Ping Liu, Malcolm K Horne (Poster)

SS Longmuir, BJ Turner, MK Horne: The effect of a-synuclein expression on the secretion and endosome-lysosome function (in preparation)

Progress:

BGRF funding helped to obtain good preliminary evidence that blood cells are indeed affected by PD. This is being used in two separate proposals to the NHMRC.

This research may eventually help to detect PD in its early stages which would have benefits for future research and also for measuring the efficacy of treatments.