Featured Researcher

Sonia George, Ph.D.
PDF Research Fellow, University of Minnesota

In April, PDF asked our friends and donors to help us Fund a Researcher by donating to the 2010 Parkinson’s Awareness Month Challenge.  Our supporters helped us to raise nearly $70,000.

These gifts enabled PDF to fund the research of Sonia George, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota.  Dr. George is one of 14 researchers receiving grants through two key PDF programs – the International Research Grants Program and Research Fellowship Program.  PDF is providing a total of $1.2 million to support the work of these researchers.

Dr. George is using her grant to study strategies for slowing down or preventing the cognitive symptoms experienced by some people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and by those with a related condition called Lewy body dementia (LBD).  She hopes that this project, entitled, The Role of Alpha-Synuclein in Parkinson’s Disease Dementia and Dementia with Lewy Bodies, will lead to new therapeutic approaches for both PD and LBD.

She is specifically studying the role of alpha-synuclein, a protein that forms abnormal clumps in brain cells of people with Parkinson's disease and DLB.  In Parkinson's, these clumps are toxic to the cells that help direct the body’s movement.  They are normally found in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra.  Recent research suggests that abnormal alpha-synuclein accumulating in cells in another brain area, the forebrain, contributes to the dementia symptoms that are similar in PD and DLB. 

Dr. George's laboratory has shown that genetically-engineered mice that express a human form of alpha-synuclein develop memory problems as well as motor symptoms.  She will create and study a mouse model in which mutant human alpha-synuclein is produced only in the animals’ forebrains to find out whether this leads to cognitive impairment.  Then she will investigate whether the impairment can be slowed down or reversed by suppressing alpha-synuclein.

If so, the results may suggest new therapeutic approaches for both PD and DLB.

Dr. George's fellowship is supported by a one-year grant of $45,000, available through PDF's Research Fellowship Grants Program.