Supporting the next generation of Parkinson’s disease scientists: 2024 ASAP COSA virtual meeting

ASAP COSA

ASAP was proud to host the Celebration of Scientific Achievement (COSA) event, a three-day virtual poster symposium where members of the ASAP community are encouraged to exchange scientific ideas and foster new collaborations. The 2024 event featured workshops led by young investigators and a keynote address on redefining Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. COSA 2024 attracted over 550 attendees who attended poster presentations from over 140 ASAP young investigators.

The virtual poster presentations encompassed a wide variety of topics and were designed to give attendees the ability to learn about the work being conducted by members of our network. As one member of the network wrote in a post-meeting survey, “The live poster presentations were lovely! It gave me the opportunity to speak to people about their research, broadening my thinking on my own project.”

Debut of Workshops Led by Young Investigators

The COSA event provided ample opportunity for young investigators to showcase their work and drive the topics that are discussed. Unlike past COSA events, the 2024 meeting incorporated trainee-led workshops on topics of interest to ASAP young investigators. These workshops were extremely exciting to the trainees because they were both designed and implemented by young investigators in the network, thereby tackling some of the major themes that are of interest to our trainees. 

The workshops hosted at this year’s event covered a wide range of topics including trainee resources, science communications, the role of immune stress in Parkinson’s disease (PD), the role of sex and menopause in PD, and features of cell vulnerability in PD.

Redefining Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease

The keynote this year featured a dual talk on the clinical diagnosis of PD from Lana Chahine, MD, MS, and what it’s like to live with Parkinson’s disease from Peter DiBiaso, MHSA. For decades, clinicians have defined and diagnosed PD primarily by the presentations of clinical symptoms in patients. But for PD patients, disease progression begins earlier in life with changes at the cellular level driving the emergence of clinical symptoms much later on. Lana described a new guideline system for diagnosing Neuronal Synuclein Disorders (NSDs) such as Parkinson’s disease. This system relies on biomarkers, instead of clinical symptoms, in hopes that PD can be identified early in patients. In a call to action, Lana stated in order to implement this system we need clinical and basic scientists to identify more biomarkers to monitor the progression of PD. 

  “While clinical manifestations are prominent in PD, we need researchers to identify new biomarkers so that we can objectively apply biomarkers for disease progression.” – Lana Chahine, MD, MS

The second keynote speaker, Peter DiBiaso, has a unique perspective on Parkinson’s disease because not only does he work in clinical development, but he also has Parkinson’s disease. Peter’s talk emphasized the importance of clinical researchers moving toward a more patient-centric mindset. 

“Clinical researchers should volunteer for a clinical research study because it teaches volumes in terms of the patient perspective and without this focus, we are going to keep spinning in a drain.” – Peter DiBiaso, MHSA

Peter’s life story was an inspirational and empowering reminder of the importance of ASAP’s mission to accelerate the pace of discovery and inform the path to a cure for Parkinson’s disease. 

Recognizing the Next Generation of PD Researchers

ASAP’s trainees are the driving workforce of ASAPs mission to unravel the mysteries surrounding the etiology of Parkinson’s disease. These young investigators are discovering and inventing innovative and bold approaches to tackle our understanding of PD across three major themes: PD Functional Genomics, Neuroimmune Interactions, and Circuitry & Brain-Body Interactions. To recognize their achievements, ASAP awarded best poster presentation awards to the top three presenters for each of the three major theme categories:

PD Functional Genomics

Reviewers First Place Prize

First place prize went to Claire Chiang of Team Alessi for their research titled, “Discovery and characterization of PPM1M as a LRRK2 modification-specific, phosphorab12-preferring phosphatase”

Reviewers Second Place Prize

Second place prize went to Christos Themistokleous of Team Alessi for their research titled, “Unveiling the brain mitochondria: comprehensive proteomic analysis and insights into the LRRK2 R1441C mutation”

Reviewers Third Place Prize

Third place prize went to Elias Adriaenssens of Team Hurley for their research titled, “Control of mitophagy initiation and progression by the TBK1 adaptors NAP1 and SINTBAD”

Neuro-immune Interactions

Reviewers First Place Prize

First place prize went to Raquel Garza of Team Jakobsson for their research titled, “The egg or the chicken: in-vitro studies to understand the link between transposable elements and PD-neuroinflammation”

Reviewers Second Place Prize

Second place prize went to Vidyadhara DJ of Team Hafler for their research titled, “Synaptic endocytosis and plasticity deficits underlie GBA-linked cognitive dysfunction”

Reviewers Third Place Prize

Third place prize went to Maria Jose Perez Jimenez of Team Schapira for their research titled, “Mitochondrial protein stress triggers microglial senescence and defects in toxic protein clearance in iPSCs-derived 2D models and brain-microglia assembloids”

Circuitry & Brain-Body Interactions

Reviewers First Place Prize

First place prize went to Jessica Perkins of Team Edwards for their research titled, “Physiology and intracellular Ca2+ dynamics of vulnerable and resilient SNc dopaminergic neuron subpopulations in non-human primates”

Reviewers Second Place Prize

Second place prize went to Ioannis Mantas of Team Cragg for their research titled, “Vulnerability and function of the ANXA1 dopamine neurons subtype in models of Parkinson’s disease”

Reviewers Third Place Prize

Third place prize went to Shivathmihai Nagappan of Team Awatramani for their research titled, “The role of ANXA1+ dopamine neurons in motor learning and movement execution”

Community Prize

Based on polling from the COSA attendees, this year’s community prize went to Ahmed Fahmy from Team Desjardins for their research titled, “Cross-talk between LRRK2 and the cGAS-STING pathway regulates the activation of innate and adaptive immune responses during inflammation”

Thank you to all of the trainees for sharing their findings from their ASAP grants and for their contributions to ASAP. We commend their efforts to help us accelerate the pace of discovery to inform the path to a cure for Parkinson’s disease.