Cade Lecture: Towards New Drugs For Parkinson's disease
Hear Professor Anderson of the Buck Institute of Aging talk about the latest research that could lead to new treatments for Parkinson's disease.
Posted: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 11:08
Location: Melbourne (Sunderland Theatre, Medical Building, University of Melbourne (enter from Grattan Street))
Event Time: 6.00pm
Event Date: 04 November 2010
Organisation: Mental Health Research Institute
Link: http://www.mhri.edu.au/events.htm
Contact Name: Babita
Contact Phone: 03 9389 2911
Cost: Free
Dr Andersen’s laboratory studies the molecular and cellular bases for Parkinson’s disease, an incurable neuro degenerative disorder. Parkinson’s disease symptoms include tremor, slowness of movement, rigidity and problems with balance.
Research has long suggested that sporadic forms of the disorder are not strictly genetic, but most likely result from combined environmental exposures coupled with increased genetic susceptibilities.
Dr Andersen recently published evidence that inducing glutathione loss results in an age-related neuronal cell loss akin to that which occurs in Parkinson’s disease. This provides an important new animal model for testing the
efficacy in glutathione replacement as a treatment for the disease.
Her team also showed that increasing levels of an enzyme (MAO-B), known to increase with age, also results in neurodegeneration. This suggests that this increase can predispose people to Parkinson’s disease and that early
treatment with inhibitors may be warranted.
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