Parkinson’s researchers at UF win grant from Michael J. Fox Foundation

University of Florida researchers are among the winners of the first round of grants from a foundation established by actor Michael J. Fox to fight Parkinson’s disease.

Ronald J. Mandel, an associate professor in the College of Medicine’s department of neuroscience, is the principal investigator for the two-year, $100,000 grant. Alfred S. Lewin, a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology, is co-principal investigator.

In April, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research awarded a total of $1.5 million to 15 projects selected from about 250 applications.

With the funds, the UF researchers are seeking to develop an improved animal model of the disease. To date, scientists studying Parkinson’s have relied on toxins to provoke symptoms in rats that mimic the human disease. It’s been unclear, however, whether treatments effective in such animals also would work in humans because the cause of the symptoms and mechanisms of their progression differ.

In their efforts, the UF scientists will try to use gene therapy techniques in rats to shut down the action of the recently discovered “parkin” gene. A mutated form of parkin has been implicated in some cases of early-onset Parkinson’s.

“The lack of a truly valid animal model has been a huge roadblock to moving treatment efforts from animals into people,” Mandel said.

Mandel and Lewin are affiliated with UF’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute and UF’s Genetics Institute.

Parkinson’s disease, which afflicts more than 1 million people in the United States and Canada, is a progressive neurologic condition characterized by rigidity in the arms and legs, tremors and movement difficulties. Fox was diagnosed with the disease in 1991.