NIH Awards Mayo Clinic $5.9 Million for Parkinson's Disease Research

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Mayo Clinic $5.9 million to support Mayo's continuing research on Parkinson's disease. The five-year grant for work in the molecular epidemiology of Parkinson's begins this month.

"We are pleased that NIH has renewed its support of our efforts to understand how genetic and environmental factors influence the risk of Parkinson's disease," says Demetrius Maraganore, M.D., Mayo Clinic neurologist and principal investigator on the project.

The research will attempt to refine the associations between "susceptibility" genes and Parkinson's, and then study interactions among the genes and their environment, as well as with gender among Parkinson's patients. To accomplish these aims, the research team will study 1,500 Mayo Clinic patients with Parkinson's and their siblings.

Co-investigators include Mariza de Andrade, Ph.D.; Julie Cunningham, Ph.D.; and Walter Rocca, M.D.; from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.; and Matthew Farrer, Ph.D., from Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.
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