He mentioned that the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre is looking for patients to be involved in the research they are doing. If you are interested more information can be found at:

http://opdc.medsci.ox.ac.uk/patient-involvement

Steve Caswell
Trudi Ashmore
Kevin Ashmore
Sara Dickinson
John Dickinson
David Salisbury

The Parkinson’s disease society a charity which funds research into  the condition has chosen the Oxford teamas winners of the Monument Discovery  Award.

The decision means £5m of research  funding over the next five years will provided to the team – the Oxford Parkinson’s  Disease Consortium -so they can crack the code of Parkinson’s, a neurological disease which affects a sufferer’s speech and movement.

The team  led by  Dr Richard Wade-Martins,beat scientists from insitutions across the UK to be picked for the award.

They are hoping to find a way to diagnose Parkinson’s earlier and then work on a effective  treatment.

There are up to 1,400 people with Parkinson’s in the country, according to Oxfordshire NHS Primary care trust.

Dr Wade-Martins and his team will now recruit 1,700 people with the condition, 300 of their relaties who may be at risk from the  disease, 300 people without Parkinson’s to help with the study .

Dr Wade-Martins said ;”We’re  abolutely thrilled to have been chosen.

Our team of 13 includes  world-class  scientists from the University of Oxford and two medical research council units,working across anumber of different disciplines ,including genetics,neurology and imaging.

We will undertake a new study to better understand the very earliest steps in developing Parkinson’s disease with the eventual aim of generating drugs to halt the disease before symptoms appear.”Their project -undstanding the early patholgical pathways in Parkinson’s disease -will look at three key areas of Parkinson’s research to find out how it develops and progresses ,what the early signals are  and to pave  way for new and better treatments.

Researchers believe that finding a way to diagnose Parkinson’s earlier a key  combined with more effective  treatments , it could slow ,halt or even reverse the progession of the condition  . The research award is funded by the Monument trust ,one of the Sainsbury family trusts .The late Simon Sainbury,who established the trust had Parkinson’s and the trustees want to fund innovative  research.

steve.caswell@yahoo.co.uk

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