Michael Koob, PhD, and his team from University of Minnesota Medical School have been selected to join the Collaborative Research Network (CRN), an international, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional network working to address high-priority research questions about Parkinson's disease, through a $6 million grant awarded by Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP), in partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF).
"We still do not fully understand how Parkinson's disease develops and progresses, and we don't have effective treatments for preventing or slowing the progression of this disease. We are excited to join the global research network built by ASAP and MJFF to help address these questions through team-based collaboration and open science," said Dr. Koob, a professor at the Medical School. "We look forward to applying our expertise in building precision-engineered cell systems to provide essential research tools for these global efforts."
ASAP is expanding the CRN to map the biological blueprint of Parkinson's disease and build a standardized toolkit of global research resources needed to turn discoveries into treatments. This next phase of the initiative focuses on understanding the heterogeneity of Parkinson's disease, why it varies across individuals, and advancing discoveries toward more precise diagnostics and future therapies. This effort includes the generation of novel resources for the global research community to work from a common, high-quality baseline, reducing the technical hurdles that limit research progress.
This work aims to support the entire field by delivering the standardized, open-access tools needed to make Parkinson's research more reliable and efficient. Generating these shared toolkits for our emerging targets is a vital step toward streamlining our research pipeline and speeding up the transition from lab to clinic."
Sonya Dumanis, PhD, managing director, ASAP
Dr. Koob's team will focus on generating a series of gene-replacement preclinical models of Parkinson's disease. These preclinical models are intended to serve as next-generation tools for identifying critical pathogenic mechanisms in Parkinson's disease and supporting early-stage therapeutic research.
Because the only genetic difference between the control and experimental models will be the specific human PD mutation, the research team will be able to clearly see the effects of each mutation. These models may help researchers better understand how specific mutations influence disease processes and evaluate potential therapeutic approaches in preclinical settings.
"These models could help us better understand how Parkinson's disease works and support testing of potential therapies in early stages of research," Dr. Koob said.
The team's research project will get underway in June.
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