Two Michigan State University (MSU) researchers are sharing a $6.2 million Morris K. Udall Center of Excellence for Parkinson’s disease grant with University of Cincinnati researchers to advance Parkinson’s research.
MSU researchers Jack Lipton and Caryl E. Sortwell will conduct the Parkinson’s disease research in the Van Andel Institute. University of Cincinnati researchers Timothy Collier and Kathy Steece-Collier will join the team in Grand Rapids.
“The Udall Center of Excellence designation brought to MSU by our new Parkinson’s disease research cluster speaks to the caliber of researchers we are able to recruit to Grand Rapids because of our unique health science partnerships,” says Marsha Rappley, dean of the MSU College of Human Medicine. “By the time the entire Parkinson’s research group and their families are relocated to Grand Rapids, we’ll have a team of eight investigators at the Udall Center.”
Sortwell’s research examines how one of the more promising Parkinson’s therapies, deep brain stimulation, relieves symptoms and how the procedure may slow the progress of the disease.
Other Udall Center projects include examining how brain’s anatomy changes as the disease progresses and how certain drug therapies can reduce these changes; depression may play a role in progression of the disease; and how undifferentiated stem cells might be used to combat neurodegeneration.
The grant was awarded by the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health.
Source: MSU
Ivy Hughes is the managing editor of Capital Gains and can be reached here.
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