The Michael Stern Parkinson’s Research Foundation Scientific Achievements in Parkinson’s Research

From its establishment in 2001 till December 2007, The Michael Stern Parkinson’s Research Foundation has provided over $18 million for research to find the causes and a cure for Parkinson’s disease. In these few short years, we’ve made major progress towards those goals. Significant accomplishments directly due to Foundation funding include: 

--Continuing fundamental discoveries about the function of “master molecule”      DARPP-32 that will lay the groundwork for new treatments. Read more

 --Fine tuning our understanding of the signaling pathways within dopamine  neurons. Read more

 --Developing new imaging techniques for detecting changes in the Parkinson’s disease brain at the earliest stages of the disease.  Read more

 -- Investigating non-dopamine related symptoms, such as mood disorders, and the impact they have on patients and families Read more

 -- Refining the conditions needed for developing techniques to transplant therapeutic cells into the brain, based on research in animal models of Parkinson’s disease.  Read more

 -- Investigating genes that protect some dopamine neurons and genes that put other dopamine neurons at risk  Read more