The Parkinson Research Consortium (PRC) is now just over two years old and continues to grow in productivity, person-nel and resources to help find a cure for Parkinson’ s disease. Parkinson ’ s dis-ease is the second most common neurode-generative disease that affects more than 1% of the population over 65 years old. Currently there are no treatments that have been shown to affect the progression of the disease. The PRC is composed of a select group of scientist at the Ottawa Health Re-search Institute and the University of Ot-tawa. The main goal of the PRC is to be an in-cubator for innovative ideas in PD research and generate novel findings leading to a cure for this devastating disease. It does so by promoting and encouraging synergistic interactions between scientists and clini-cians. It also brings in specialists from other areas of neurobiology, cell biology, genetics, and systems biology to study the problem of Parkinson ’ s disease. Its sec-ondary goals are to promote awareness in the local and national community as well as to promote integration of Parkinson’ s research on a national basis.

Parkinson Research Consortium

An important goal of the Parkinson Re-search Consortium (PRC) has been to at-tract new scientists and clinicians into the field of Parkinson ’ s. In the summer of 2006 the PRC played a critical role in re-cruiting a prominent Parkinson ’ s physi-cian from Harvard University in the United States. Dr. Schlossmacher has be-come an integral part of the PRC, bringing fresh ideas and initiatives to the group. His work focuses on Parkinson ’ s genes and therapeutics as well as in it ’ s early detection. He has obtained a prestigious CIHR Parkinson ’ s Disease Chair. WELCOME !

Dr. Michael Schlossmacher, Canadian In-sti tute of Health Research Parkinson ’ s Disease Chair.

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Awareness and Fundraising for Parkinson ’ s Research

Ensuring that people are aware of Parkinson ’ s and how it affects the lives of so many Canadians will benefit all those involved. Members of the PRC have been contributing in raising awareness by lecturing at evening seminars for patients and their caregivers, participating in fund-raising endeavors and maintaining close ties with the Parkinson Society Ottawa. This includes events organized by the Parkinson Society Ottawa like the Parkinson ’ s Super walk, Golf tournament, and Yuk-Yuk Parkinson ’ s Comedy Night but also direct PRC events. WE THANK EVERYONE FOR VOLUNTEERING AS WELL AS THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT.

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Importance of our Donors and Fundraisers

Without the generous support of our donors, fundraisers and advisory board members the PRC would not be in existence. The Parkinson Society Ottawa, the Kiwanis Medical Foundation and the Harold Crabtree Foundation provided the initial funds. Major fundraising events have now included the Paul Anka Evening sponsored by the Thomas C. AssalyCharitable Foundation, Pounding the Pavement for Parkinson ’ s organized by Tracy Tremble, and Shelby Hayter ’ s Run for a Cure at the Boston Marathon.

Yearly events have now been started for which the funds go directly to PRC researchers. These include a generous yearly grant from the AssalyCharitable Foundation, Pounding the Pavement and the Pass the Baton for Parkinson ’ s events. These novel fund-raising endeavors have come about by individuals interested in helping support Parkinson ’ s research. Despite the PRC being only two years old a remarkable $440,000 in funding support has been raised from these events in addition to individual private donations.

Pass the Baton Fundraising event. Hossein Aleyasin PhD fellow, Shelby Hayter (event organizer), Dr. Schlossmacher, Wayne Widenmaier(Principal Berrigan Elementary School).

Runner ’ s from the Pounding the Pavement for Parkinson ’ s event

Business as usual is not good enough. I still cannot tie my tie any faster, my gait is not any better…. despite the millions that our organization and the NIH has put into research. Mi-

chael J. Fox. Washington D.C. February 2006

Current Parkinson Research

PRC members now have many active specific scientific projects which we be-lieve are critical to the understanding of the disease. The current projects center on using different models to study the dis-ease and include:

a) Worm models: Identification of the ge-netic determinants of dopaminergic neu-ron development and death in the C. Ele-gans worm. b) Fish Models: Zebra fish and Gold fish are powerful vertebrate genetic model for the study of Parkinson ’ s disease. c) Fly Models: The fruit fly (drosophila) can be used to determine pathways of dopaminergic loss in Parkinson ’ s dis-ease. d) Mouse Models: Delineation of the mo-lecular mechanisms of dopaminergic loss in mammalian models of Parkinson ’ s disease. e) Humans: Screening for mutations in the known and yet to be identified Parkinson causing genes in people with Parkin-son ’ s and understanding how these mu-tations cause the disease. The newest member of the PRC, Dr. M. Schloss-macher efforts are looking at the develop-ment of biomarkers to help diagnose Parkinson’ s disease, measure it ’ s pro-gression and to identify molecular targets as new treatment options.

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Success of the PRC Success in research can be measured in many ways. First, the PRC members have generated exciting and innovative ideas in the mechanisms underlying Parkinson ’ s. Examples of the successes include the identification of novel inflammatory fac-tors critical for degeneration, the develop-ment of novel gene expression models and generating a clear understanding how com-mon the disease causing genes are occur-ring in Canadians with Parkinson ’ s. The scientific successes are also substantiated by the large number of publications in peer reviewed journals.

Zebrafish used to study Parkinson's genes.

Second, having the funding to be able to encourage the next generation of re-searchers to become interested in study-ing this disease is an important index of success. The PRC has been able to pro-vide funding for six students and techni-cians vital for the projects of the PRC. A third index of success is the ability to successfully compete for national and international grants. We are all proud of the external funding our members have received. Our researchers have received awards from Parkinson Society Canada, Parkinson’ s Disease Foundation, Mi-chael J. Fox National Parkinson Disease Foundation, US Army, the American Parkinson Disease Association, the Na-tional Institutes of Health (United States) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research. Finally, an important goal of the PRC in terms of our scientific goals has been to attract new scientists and clinicians into Parkinson ’ s. In addition to recruit-ing Dr. Schlossmacher from Harvard University in the United State, we have also attracted new local researchers in-cluding Heidi McBride, a mitochondrial specialist, Stephanie Bennett, a special-ist in neurodegeneration and Dan Figeys, a proteomics specialist. All these individuals will enhance the capacity of the PRC for novel research.

Current Parkinson Research Consortium Members DR. DAVID A. GRIMES MD, FRCPC: Co-Director: Neurologist, specializing in Parkinson ’ s disease and molecular genetics. DR. DAVID S. PARK, PhD Co-Director: Expert in neuronal death signaling and mechanisms of neurodegenerative disease, particularly PD. DR. MICHAEL SCHLOSSMACHER MD: Neurologist and clini-cian scientist working on the development of biomarkers for PD and identifying gene targets for the development of novel treat-ments. DR. ANTONIO COLAVITA PHD: molecular biologist and an expert in worm genetics and nervous system development who utilizes the worm to study PD. DR. DENNIS BULMAN PHD –A molecular geneticist who is an expert at the identification of human disease genes including those linked to PD. DR. MARK EKKER, PHD: Internationally recognized develop-mental biologist who examines the developmental role of PD related genes Dr. RUTH SLACK, PhD: An expert in stem cell biology. Dr. ROBIN PARKS, PhD: Investigator with research expertise in gene therapy who develops viral delivery vectors for PD genes. Dr. VANCE TRUDEAU, PhD: expert in brain regulation factors in the gold fish, exploring both internal regulators and external environmental toxic influences. Dr. STEPHANIE BENNETT, PhD: stem cell biologist and neuro-scientist with expertise in animal models of neurodegeneration and lipid biology, issues critical to PD. Dr. DANIEL FIGEYS, PhD: Systems Biology and proteomics expert and head of the Ottawa Systems Biology Program. Dr. HEIDI MCBRIDE, PhD: Cell biologist with expertise in mi-tochondrial biology, signals critical for PD pathogenesis Dr. PAUL ALBERT, PhD: An expert in dopamine signaling pathways Dr. JOHNNY NGSEE, PhD: A cell biologist who specializes in the processes that determine information trafficking among brain cells. Dr. JOHN WOULFE, MD: Our expert neuropathologist who is exploring why abnormal inclusions form within dieing brain

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Research Highlight, Matthew Mount (shown) and Arman LIra, PhD students of Dr. Park worked to-gether with Dr. Grimes in animal models and pa-tients to understand the role of the important in-flammatory agent IFN in Parkinson's disease. This work underscores the patient to animal integrative approach of the PRC.