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Australian researchers have received funding to undertake an in-vitro study of live brain cells in Parkinson's disease patients.
This work is critical in laying the foundations for screening new therapeutics that are needed to stop the debilitating progression of Parkinson's. If successful for this Parkinson's project, our approach may be extended to all kinds of brain disorders.
Cedric Bardy, leader of the study from the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), said the team was granted funding from Perpetual IMPACT Philanthropy to discover new molecular targets to treat Parkinson's.
One of the major issues in developing cures for the disease is a lack of access to live neurons to study the disease and test new drugs.
Bardy's team has developed a platform on which live human neurons can be developed and will use the platform to compare biological differences between neurons from Parkinson's patients and healthy subjects.