New drug molecule offers hope for early treatment of Parkinson’s disease

A new drug molecule could potentially lead to new treatments to prevent Parkinson’s disease in younger patients, according to new research.

We are excited about this drug compound because we may have the potential to develop the first treatment for Parkinson’s disease, at least for a subset of patients.”

Kalle Gehring, lead author, Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Structural Studies of Neurodegenerative Diseases

While Parkinson’s symptoms -? slowness of movements, tremors and balance problems -; Often appearing in people in their 60s, 5 to 10 per cent of people are diagnosed before they turn 40. The degenerative disorder affects more than 100,000 Canadians, according to researchers.

The study investigated how a molecule developed by biotech company Biogen can reactivate a critical protein called parkin. It normally plays a key role in maintaining healthy brain cells by cleaning up damaged mitochondria, the energy centers of cells. In some younger patients, park mutations disrupt this process, leading to the accumulation of damaged mitochondria that contribute to Parkinson’s disease.

Using advanced technology at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, researchers determined that the Biogen compound restores parkin’s cleaning function by bonding parkin and a natural activator found in cells.

The findings, published in Nature communicationslaid the foundation for designing personalized treatments for younger patients with specific mutations, the authors said.

“The hope is that one day we will find compounds that can treat Parkinson’s disease in general,” Gehring said, adding that it will be up to Biogen to apply the study’s results to future drug development.

“As the population in Canada ages and better treatments for other diseases become available, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s will become a significant health problem,” he added.

McGill research teams led by Professor Jean-François Trempe in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Professor Edward Fon at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital collaborated on the study. Funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Research Chairs program.