In First-Ever Co-sponsorship, NPF and PDF Award $1.1 Million in Research Grants

As a prelude to the proposed merger between two of the Parkinson community's leading research organizations, the Parkinson's Disease Foundation (PDF) and the National Parkinson Foundation (NPF) collaborated this year to offer $1.1 million in research grants to some 28 scientists in the U.S. and four other countries. (See lead story on page 1). The program provides seed grants of up to $40,000 to pursue the cutting-edge research on Parkinson's disease that may later lead to larger and long-term financial support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The "request for applications" (RFAs) brought a pool of 75 promising proposals from which the PDF-NPF Joint Scientific Advisory Committee, in a daylong review session on Saturday, May 4, selected 28 for support during the academic year 2002-2003. The Committee was co-chaired by Dr. Stanley Fahn, Scientific Director of PDF, and Dr. Ariel Deutch, Scientific Chair of NPF.

Among the unanswered questions that will be explored during this grant cycle is, "What is the normal function of the neurotrophic factor in the brain?" Dr. Xiaoxi Zhuang of the University of Chicago will focus on the neuron-building compound GDNF that has been shown by many investigators to protect and restore the function of dopamine neurons in a variety of parkinsonian research models and is being looked at as a potential treatment for PD.

Below is a complete list of the FY 2002-03 grant recipients.

1. Guy A. Caldwell, Ph.D. (University of Alabama)

2. William T. Dauer, M.D. (Columbia University, NY)

3. David Eliezer, Ph.D. (Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY)

4. Simone Engelender, M.D., Ph.D. (Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel)

5. Paul Good, Ph.D., and Stave Kohtz, Ph.D. (Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, NY)

6. Penelope Jane Hallett, Ph.D., and David Standaert, M.D., Ph.D. (Massachusetts General Hospital)

7. Glenda Halliday, Ph.D. (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Australia)

8. Jeffrey Hausdorff, MSME, Ph.D., and Nir Giladi, M.D. (Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Israel)

9. Peter Heutink, Ph.D. (Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

10. Sherwin Hua, M.D., Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University, MD)

11. Vernice Jackson-Lewis, Ph.D. (Columbia University, NY)

12. Susan Jones, Ph.D. (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)

13. Un Jung Kang, M.D. (University of Chicago)

14. Liu Feng, Ph.D (Rockefeller University, NY)

15. David Lynch, M.D., Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital)

16. Jyothi Mallajosyula, Ph.D. (Buck Institute for Age Research, CA)

17. Giselle Petzinger, M.D. and Michael Jakowec, Ph.D. (University of Southern California)

18. Carlos Portera-Cailliau, M.D. (Columbia University, NY)

19. Margaret Rice, Ph.D. (New York University)

20. Esen Topcuoglu Saka, M.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

21. Brenda Schulman, Ph.D. (St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, TN)

22. Janet Sobell, Ph.D. (Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope National Medical Center, CA)
23. David Sulzer, M.D., and Roland Staal, Ph.D. (Columbia University, NY)

24. Barbara Stecca, Ph.D. (New York University)

25. Leonidas Stefanis, M.D., Ph.D. (Columbia University, NY)

26. Jay Winkler, Ph.D. (California Institute of Technology)

27. Pingyi Xu, M.D., Ph.D. (Baylor College of Medicine, TX)

28. Xiaoxi Zhuang, Ph.D. (University of Chicago)