Emory Report

June 28, 1999

Volume 51, No. 34

Emory named Parkinson's disease research center of excellence Patients with Parkinson's disease can be encouraged that scientists will make substantial progress in the next few years in unraveling its causes and finding new ways to diagnose and treat the disorder, thanks to added muscle from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Faculty at the School of Medicine will continue to be at the forefront of that effort as Emory becomes one of three universities awarded $7.5 million to fund Parkinson's Disease Research Centers of Excellence. Johns Hopkins and Harvard universities are the other awardees. The research here will be led by Department of Neurology Chairman Mahlon DeLong, an international authority on movement disorders. The center will provide state-of-the-art research and multidisciplinary training for young scientists to research Parkinson's and related disorders. Parkinson's disease, a chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting the basal ganglia region of the brain, afflicts more than 1 million people in the United States. Over the past decade remarkable progress has occurred in understanding the basis of the disorder and in developing new treatments. For instance, there's been a renaissance in surgical interventions for Parkinson's disease, in part due to experimental studies carried out by DeLong and his colleagues. Pallidotomy, a procedure introduced and later abandoned in the '50s, has now-in a more refined form-become a widely accepted procedure for advanced, medically intractable Parkinson's disease. More recently, a less invasive and more easily controlled treatment--deep brain stimulation--has been introduced. Research at the Emory center is focused on five therapeutically relevant goals, each headed by a key individual: (1) development of a better animal model of Parkinson's disease (Timothy Greenamyre); (2) testing of proposed physiologic mechanisms underlying Parkinson's (Scott Grafton); (3) determining the mechanism of action of deep brain stimulation (Jerry Vitek); (4) elucidating the therapeutic and potentially neuroprotective effects of stimulation (Thomas Wichmann); and (5) developing better drug therapies for Parkinson's (Jeffrey Conn). Research is carried out in multiple departments and centers at Emory including neurology, anatomy/cell biology, pharmacology, nuclear medicine, Yerkes and the PET (positron emission tomography) Center. --Lorri Preston Return to June 28, 1999, contents page