Ms. Emilie Legault

University of Montreal

Funded in Partnership with Fonds de Recherche du Québec -Santé

Graduate Student Award

$10,000 over 2 years

Causes

A new technology that maintains the age of the donors when converting skin cells into brain cells will give PhD candidate Emilie Legault a major advantage when investigating why people get non-familial, or idiopathic, forms of Parkinson’s. At the Université de Montreal, Legault uses these transformed cells to study the effects of aging on the development of Parkinson’s. She’s assessing how aging affects brain cells’ ability to manage stress or clear away damaged mitochondria, the energy-generating powerhouse within cells.

Eric Yu

PhD Candidate, McGill University

Funded in Partnership with Québec Parkinson Network

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

Causes

Although researchers know genetics play a factor in the development of Parkinson's, they haven't yet uncovered all the risk factors in the human genome. At McGill University, PhD candidate Eric Yu, a geneticist, will investigate the role genes that get duplicated or deleted play in elevating the risk of Parkinson's. He'll also try to determine the effect of mutations in non-coding areas of the gene , to see if this non-coding DNA is associated with proteins linked to Parkinson's.

Mr. Jacopo Cristini

McGill University

Funded in Partnership with Québec Parkinson Network

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

Treatment of Parkinson's

Sleep problems affect most people with Parkinson's, reducing their quality of life. At McGill University's Memory Lab, Jacopo Cristini, a PhD candidate investigates whether different types of exercise can improve sleep quality and slow down the progression of motor and cognitive decline in people with Parkinson's. If the people in his study experience improvements in sleep, associated with better motor and cognitive function, the results will potentially strengthen the evidence for exercise as an additional prescription to treat Parkinson's.

Heidi Riek

Queens University

Funded in Partnership with Parkinson Society of British Columbia

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

Biomarkers

At Queen's University, PhD candidate Heidi Riek, a neuroscientist, is identifying patterns of eye movements in people with Parkinson's, those without Parkinson's, and people with other progressive brain diseases. Her goal is to create a tool so doctors can measure their patients' eye movements and compare them to these patterns. She hopes the process will enable doctors to tell if someone has Parkinson's, how far it has progressed, and if dementia is present, knowledge that can help inform treatment plans.

Pooja Gandhi

PhD candidate, University Health Network

Funded in Partnership with Parkinson Society of British Columbia

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

Treatment of Parkinson's

Weakening of the swallowing muscles in people with Parkinson's increases the risk of choking due to solid foods and liquids entering and potentially blocking their airways. At Toronto's University Health Network, Pooja Gandhi, a PhD candidate in speech and language pathology, uses an exercise-based approach to help people with Parkinson's strengthen their swallowing muscles. Following four weeks of intensive treatment, Gandhi hopes people she works with will be able to better protect their airways, clear food and liquids, and be able to eat and drink normally, improving their quality of life.

Mr. Sam Booth

PhD Candidate, University of Manitoba

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

Complications

Most people with Parkinson’s who take the medication levodopa eventually develop involuntary, erratic movements called dyskinesia. At the University of Manitoba, Samuel Booth, a PhD candidate, uses animal models to scan and map changes in blood flow and metabolism in the brain that occur early in the L-Dopa treatment course. Booth hopes to develop a biomarker to predict who is at risk for dyskinesia, as well as to open an avenue for preventing and treating these involuntary movements.

Delivering treatment directly to the areas of the brain that Parkinson's affects has so far proven difficult, in part because of blockage created by the blood-brain barrier. At Toronto's Sunnybrook Research Institute, neuroscientist Dallan McMahon uses microbubbles and ultrasound equipment to open the blood-brain barrier in mouse models. Once that barrier is open, substances that facilitate gene therapy can flow to the affected areas of the brain. The particular gene therapy being tested would trigger the transformation of support cells into new dopamine-producing brain cells.

Dr. Surabi Mehra

University of Toronto (Toronto, ON)

Basic Research Fellowship

$80,000 over 2 years

Causes

Many researchers are interested in a protein called alpha-synuclein, which is implicated in the death of brain cells in Parkinson’s. At the University of Toronto, Surabhi Mehra, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow, is investigating whether this protein is infectious, and has the ability to spread and evolve, similar to a prion. That would explain why the same protein that clumps up in brain cells is linked to so many different symptoms and diseases. The results of Mehra’s research could lead to new drug targets against different strains of alpha-synuclein and associated diseases.

Dr. Konrad Ricke

University of Ottawa

$100,000 over 2 years

Researchers believe having even slightly elevated amounts of the alpha-synuclein protein in the brain increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s. At the University of Ottawa, Konrad Ricke, a postdoctoral fellow, is screening thousands of proteins to determine their effect on alpha-synuclein, and the sites on the alpha-synuclein gene where they bind. If he can identify these alpha-synuclein regulators, his work could help develop new drugs or gene editing therapies that could reduce the buildup of alpha-synuclein in the brain.

Erind Alushaj

PhD Student, Western University

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

Biomarkers

People with a disorder affecting their REM sleep cycles are at high risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. At Western University, PhD student Erind Alushaj uses Magnetic Resonance Imaging to investigate the iron levels and structural connections in the brains of people with REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder. If he can detect similar patterns in the brains of people with Parkinson’s and people with the sleep disorder, these scans could help diagnose Parkinson’s before it has done irreversible damage to brain cells.

Raphaella W.L. So

PhD Student, University of Toronto

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

Causes

At the University of Toronto, PhD student Raphaella So investigates the role the cellular prion protein plays in Parkinson’s disease. She’s interested in how this protein interacts with alpha-synuclein, another key protein implicated in the death of the dopamine-producing brain cells whose loss results in Parkinson’s.

Understanding the role of the cellular prion protein could eventually identify another target for a drug to stop or slow the disease’s progression.

Deep brain stimulation is a helpful but invasive treatment for Parkinson’s disease that requires implanting electrodes deep inside the brain. At McGill University, Matthew Krause, a research associate, studies transcranial electrical stimulation. This technology delivers electrical pulses to the brain non-invasively. If the method Krause is investigating to deliver transcranial electrical stimulation works, many more people with Parkinson’s disease could benefit from this treatment.

Trillions of bacteria, fungi and viruses live inside our gut, or digestive tract. At the University of British Columbia, Dr. Silke Appel-Cresswell, a neurologist and associate professor, is investigating the strains of bacteria present in the gut of people with Parkinson’s disease. These strains are different than those present in people who don’t have Parkinson’s. She hopes to open new treatment avenues by determining what bacteria are present and what they do, such as driving inflammation. Her work will deepen our understanding of how the disease likely starts in the gut for many people with Parkinson’s.

At the Montreal Neurological Institute, Yogitha Thattikota, a post-doctoral fellow, is using cutting-edge genetic screening tools to study the proteins that regulate alpha-synuclein, another protein that’s a key player in Parkinson’s disease. Clumps of alpha-synuclein accumulate in the brain cells that produce dopamine, killing those cells and leading to Parkinson’s. If she can identify other proteins that cause the over-production of alpha-synuclein, Thattikota’s research could open a new avenue for a drug target to stop this process.

M Amin Banihashemi

PhD student, University of Toronto

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

At the University of Toronto, PhD student Amin Banihashemi studies changes to the retina for clues to changes in the brain in Parkinson’s disease. Changes in the retina, a structure in the eye, mimic those that occur in the brain as Parkinson’s progresses. By measuring these changes in the retina, Banihashemi hopes to estimate changes in the brain in Parkinson’s.

Emma MacDougall

PhD Student, Montreal Neurological Institute (McGill University)

Graduate Student Award

$20,000 over 2 years

At the Montreal Neurological Institute, PhD student Emma MacDougall is studying LRRK2, a protein produced by the LRRK2 gene that, when mutated, causes familial forms of Parkinson’s disease. MacDougall will alter stem cells from people with Parkinson’s disease so they take on the characteristics of microglial brain cells. By building a three-dimensional model including these cells – a mini-brain – and comparing them to 3D models of cells from healthy people, she’ll learn more about LRRK2’s function.

Dr. Simon Veyron

Post-Doctoral Fellow, McGill University

Funded in partnership with Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé

Basic Research Fellowship

$50,000 over 2 years

At McGill University, Simon Veyron, a post-doctoral fellow, is searching for the basis of a new drug to treat Parkinson’s disease. Veyron, a biochemist, is combining fragments of molecules to create a substance that will bind to Parkin, a protein implicated in the process that causes inherited forms of Parkinson’s. If the compound Veyron creates can activate Parkinson and restore the protein’s function, the new substance could eventually form a drug that restores the health of the brain cells that die during Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Jean-Francois Poulin

McGill University

New Investigator Award

$90,000 over 2 years

Although researchers know the death of brain cells that generate the signalling chemical dopamine results in Parkinson’s disease, they don’t know exactly what triggers cell death. At McGill University, neuroscientist Jean-François Poulin has identified a type of more vulnerable dopamine neuron. He’s investigating the structure of these particular neurons to see why they die. Ultimately, pinpointing the reasons these neurons die will open an avenue to a new drug or therapy.