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New publication in Nature Communications: 10 pesticides associated with PD are directly toxic to dopaminergic neurons.

Congratulations to Rich Krolewski and Edinson Lucumi Moreno in our group, and our collaborators Kim Paul and Beate Ritz at UCLA and Lee Rubin at Harvard University, for this publication in Nature Communications! The study identifies a large number of pesticides and pesticide combinations that contribute to PD, including 10 that are directly toxic to PD patient iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons. Please see our Media page for details on coverage. BWH Press Release.

DOD awards second major grant to BWH-UCLA collaboration!

A major grant entitled “Microbiome Impact on Neuro-Immmune and Neurodegenerative Processes in Parkinson’s Disease Patients” has been funded to the Khurana, Ritz (UCLA) and Cox (BWH/HMS) labs! Key co-investigators on the grant are BWH Division members Joanna (Asia) Korecka and Rich Krolewski. Congratulations all! 

Ariana is accepted to medical school!

Ariana Pitaro, a clinical research coordinator in our lab and Division, is accepted to med school. She will be attending the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. Congratulations, Ariana! We are so proud of you and glad you will still be in New England :)

BWH Movement Division Awards (Sudarsky, Silva and PD Innovation) announced!

BWH Movement Division Awards announced! This year the BWH Movement Division raised enough funds to support 6 projects! The PD Innovation Award (a total of $100K) was split between

  • Dr Rich Krolewski (BWH)/ Dr Todd Golub (Broad Inst) for their work on copper as a potential toxicant in Parkinson’s diseases and
  • Dr Erinc Hallacli (BWH) / Dr Mo Khalil (BU) for their work to develop a novel proteome-scale perturbation assay for Parkinson’s diseas

The inaugural Silva Ataxia Foundation fellowship went to Dr Joanna (Asia) Korecka in the Division for her work to develop a gene therapy for a childhood ataxia dentatorubropallidoluysian atrophy (DRPLA).

The BWH Movement Division Sudarsky Scholars for 2022-2023 include Dr Andreas Horn for developing a comprehensive DBS database at BWH, Dr Sumaiya Nazeen for building a new statistical genetics toolbox for analyzing rare variants in Neurodegeneration and and Dr Barbara (Kelly) Changizi for establishing a video library within the Division.

Papers in Cerebellum introduce our new clinical trials approach for MSA and other synucleinopathies

Congratulations to Alain Ndayisaba, Ariana Pitaro, Ashlan Willett and Jisoo Kim, along with BWH collaborators Geoff Young, Tarun Singhal and others, on two papers published in Cerebellum.  These papers highlight our new approach to clinical trials for synucleinopathies like PD and MSA. In a process known as “deep phenotyping” we will evaluate our patients with clinical scales, biometrics and PET/MRI imaging in conjunction with genome sequencing and stem-cell degeneration. The idea, described in this video, allows us to understand our patient’s clinical trajectory before they receive a drug in order to determine whether that trajectory is improved after the patient is given a drug. Some patients may respond, others may not. Heterogeneous responses may be missed in conventional randomized clinical trials.

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