The Michael J. Fox Foundation supports researcher from Aarhus
Associate Professor Marina Romero-Ramos from Aarhus University has received DKK one million from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for a research project that will investigate changes in the immune system in connection with Parkinson's disease.
Slowed movements, muscular stiffness and shaking. That is everyday life for the approximately 7,000 people in Denmark who suffer from Parkinson's disease. The symptoms arise because nerve cells die and too little of the substance dopamine is subsequently produced in the brain.
At present, the disease is often medicated by administering a dopamine-like substance. However, after a number of years the effect of the treatment ceases and patients suffer serious side effects.
With the grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation, Marina Romero-Ramos and her colleagues will be able to study samples from patients with Parkinson's diseases at various stages. The researchers will analyse immune cells and this analysis will help them understand the immune system’s reaction and its relation to what are known as neuronal incidents in the brain.
Marina Romero-Ramos hopes to collect sufficient knowledge to define a new immune-connected biomarker which can help diagnose, select and monitor patients with Parkinson's disease. The project will also attempt to uncover new goals aimed at slowing the development of the disease.
Contact
Associate Professor Marina Romero-Ramos
Aarhus University, Department of Biomedicine
Tel.: (+ 45) 6020 2749
mrr@biokemi.au.dk