UC Irvine neurobiologist Hans Keirstead and his research team today launched a project to develop stem cell lines that genetically match human patients. These lines would allow scientists to better study conditions ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's disease, and they would provide the basis for potential patient-specific stem cell treatments.

Parkinson's disease is well-known for its progression of motor disorders: stiffness, slowness, tremors, difficulties walking and talking. Less well known is that Parkinson's shares other symptoms with narcolepsy, a sleep disorder characterized by sudden and uncontrollable episodes of deep sleep, severe fatigue and general sleep disorder.

US FDA Approves SCHWARZ PHARMA's Neupro (Rotigotine Transdermal System) for the Treatment of Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease in USA

Parkinson's disease is well-known for its progression of motor disorders: stiffness, slowness, tremors, difficulties walking and talking.

Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes, the human version of mad cow disease, and other degenerative diseases are more closely related at the molecular level than scientists realized, a team reports this week in an advanced online publication of the journal Nature.

Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd. (President: Dr. Yuzuru Matsuda) announced that Kyowa Pharmaceutical, Inc. (New Jersey, United States, President: Shigeru Kobayashi), its wholly owned U.S subsidiary, submitted on April 25, 2007 a new drug application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Istradefylline(KW-6002), its investigational drug for Parkinson's disease.

While Florey researchers have also created a genetic test for Parkinson's disease (10% of PD cases are caused by genetic factors), this new test has a broader application by screening for many different types of PD and monitoring treatment, as well as measuring the effectiveness of drugs being developed to treat the disease.

A simple test to diagnose Parkinson's disease (PD) before symptoms appear by measuring the levels of a protein in blood is being developed by researchers from the Howard Florey Institute, The University of Melbourne and The Mental Health
Research Institute of Victoria.

Science of tomorrow promises to alleviate suffering from intractable ailments of today

After Parkinson's disease patients use the drug levodopa or L-dopa for several years as a treatment for restoring the cellular communication that controls muscle movement by replacing lost dopamine, they begin to experience motor complications that include a shortened response to each dose of L-dopa.

In families affected by Parkinson's disease, the people who smoked cigarettes and drank a lot of coffee were less likely to develop the disease, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

The Parkinson's Institute today announced that new findings concerning the role of environmental factors in the development of Parkinson's disease will be reported at Asilomar (Pacific Grove, CA) as part of the final meeting of the Collaborative Centers for Parkinson's Disease Environmental Research (CCPDER).