Charting New Waters in Parkinson’s Research: Highlights From the 2025 CRN Collaborative Meeting
ASAP's 2025 Collaborative Meeting welcomed representatives from our 35 CRN teams to share impactful findings on the PD landscape, promote the cross-fertilization of ideas, and provide opportunities to engage the broader CRN across different levels of training.
Advancing Parkinson’s Disease Research: APDA’s Commitment to Innovation
The American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) highlights Dr. Roberta Marongiu from CRN Team Kaplitt for her work exploring the role of biological sex in Parkinson’s disease.
Immune Cells May Lead to More Parkinson’s Cases in Men
New research from Team Sulzer reveals how a protein in brain cells may drive Parkinson’s onset—and offers a possible explanation for why Parkinson’s is much more common in men.
Molecular Switch for Toxic Protein Disposal May Be Parkinson’s Target
Parkinson's News Today reports on a new study from CRN Team Hurley that identified a molecular switch in a protein complex that regulates how cellular waste disposal mechanisms clean up and recycle unwanted materials - like the toxic alpha-synuclein protein clumps, or aggregates, that drive the death of nerve cells in Parkinson’s disease.
Protocol Problems: Figuring Out How an Experiment Was Done
Check out this open science blog to understand why ASAP requires a recipe-style protocol or Methods paper to be shared for every Methods section in a manuscript.
2024: A Year in Review
ASAP is excited to share how we pushed the Parkinson’s disease research field forward. Together, our supported programs worked to funnel new ideas into Parkinson’s disease R&D, facilitate the rapid exchange of ideas, ensure researchers can build upon ASAP-funded work, and establish a diverse pipeline for the next generation of researchers.
Celebrating the Collaborative ASAP Community Through Art&Science
Dr. Dorotea Fracchiolla from Team Hurley and Founder of Art&Science shares her recent series of paintings that depict the brains of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and highlights ASAP's role in facilitating collaboration and knowledge-sharing in the PD community.
PINK1 Pathway to Parkinson’s Disease: 20 Years On
Check out this blog to learn more about the PINK1 meeting that took place in London in November 2024 that marked the 20th anniversary of the discovery of PINK1 mutations linked to Parkinson’s disease.
Favre’s Parkinson’s Disease Diagnosis Raises Questions About Link to Football; UAB Research Might Have Answers
WBRC reports on a recent study that found that blows to the head, like football players regularly experience, play a significant role in a person's potential to developing Parkinson's disease.
The Role of an Energy-Producing Enzyme in Treating Parkinson’s Disease
Read this article to see how ASAP Team De Camilli discovered that an enzyme called PGK1 has an unexpectedly critical role in the production of chemical energy in brain cells and that boosting its activity may help the brain resist the energy deficits that can lead to Parkinson’s disease.
Supporting the Next Generation of Parkinson’s Disease Scientists: 2024 ASAP COSA Virtual Meeting
ASAP’s annual Celebration of Scientific Achievement (COSA) showcased the outstanding contributions of young investigators across our Collaborative Research Network (CRN). This year’s event attracted over 550 attendees who attended poster presentations from over 140 ASAP young investigators.
Platform Launched for Sharing Brain Samples in Parkinson’s Research
Parkinson's News Today reports on the ASAP CRN Cloud, a data-sharing platform that will make data on human brain samples available to researchers around the world.
Finding Rewrites Understanding Into Parkinson’s Disease Pathway
Science Daily reports on ASAP Team Hurley's recent findings that solves a mystery about how the protein Optineurin recognizes unhealthy mitochondria 'tagged' by PINK1 and Parkin, enabling their delivery to our body's garbage disposal system.
Art&Science: Parkinson’s Disease Edition
ASAP CRN researcher, Dr. Dorotea Fracchiolla, created a series of two paintings that represent topics that were discussed throughout the 2023 Collaborative Meetings in San Diego (USA) and London (UK).
Scientists Discover How PINK1 Pathway Activates to Protect Cells
Read this article to see how ASAP Team Alessi uncovered the mechanisms behind the activation of the PINK1 protein, an enzyme that protects the brain against nerve cell degeneration and the development of Parkinson’s disease.
New Molecular Sensor Tracks Energy Use at the Subcellular Level
Read this article to see how ASAP Team De Camilli and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers developed and tested a high-resolution sensor for tracking the real-time dynamics of ATP levels in cells and within subcellular compartments.
Meeting of the (PD) Minds: Recap of the 2024 ASAP CRN Meeting
Core Leadership across the 35 CRN teams came together in person for the 2024 ASAP CRN Investigators Meeting in Rome for a week-long meeting to highlight their teams' most impactful contributions to the PD research field since the start of their award.
Neuronal Diversity Impacts the Brain’s Information Processing
This news story features Team Surmeier’s findings related to the impact of neuronal structural diversity on neural computation, the basis of brain function.
A Common Marker of Neurological Diseases May Play Role in Healthy Brains
The news story features Team Gradinaru’s discovery that a protein called phosphorylated -synuclein, which is associated with several neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia, is also involved in the normal processes of how neurons communicate with each other in a healthy brain.
A Substantial Number of Parkinson’s Disease Cases Can Be Attributed to Preventable Risk Factors, New Research Finds
This news story discusses a research study by Team Liddle in Nature’s Parkinson’s Disease journal that found that preventable risk factors play a significant role in a person’s potential of developing Parkinson’s disease.
