This month we are heading into new territory with an area of research we haven’t explored at all before.  The role of the immune system until relatively recently was never given much attention, as it wasn’t thought to have any real relevance to Parkinson’s. However, our guest in this episode has discovered that isn’t the case, and there are, in fact, important links between immune responses and the progression of the disease.

Dr Caroline Williams-Gray, Principal Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, carried out long term studies following people with Parkinson’s and uncovered previously unknown connections which are helping to answer one of the biggest questions - why does Parkinson's develop differently from person to person. She is now focussing on inflammatory changes in the brain, which are thought to have particular relevance to those who go on to develop Dementia. 

In this episode we take a look at one of the most significant risks facing people with Parkinson's. The incidence of falling is far higher than the general population, and Dr Natalie Allen has done a wealth of research into the many reasons why it is such a problem amongst the Parkinson's community. 

She has been looking into ways of improving people's mobility and awareness of their environment to make them safer, and is in the process of formulating effective interventions to further reduce the fall rate. 

Exercise is often described as being one of the most important tools for managing Parkinson’s, yet many people find it difficult to start or sustain. 

In the podcast's first international episode Dr Hanan Khalil, Professor in Physiotherapy at Qatar University explains her extensive research into the barriers that can prevent people with Parkinson's from exercising regularly and keeping it up, and her examination of what kind of interventions are most effective at helping them. 

Join Dr Julie Jones from the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and Helga Macfarlane, who has lived with Parkinson's for twelve years, to find out more. 

One of the challenges facing so much Parkinson's research is that it is incredibly difficult to study the dopamine producing cells which are failing, because they are buried deep within the brain.

To overcome this problem Dr Charmaine Lang from the University of Oxford harvests skin cells from people with Parkinson's in order to grow them into brain cells in the laboratory and study them. She hopes to be able to identify a process which can protect them from damage, ultimately providing vital information towards the development of new treatments.

In this World Parkinson's Day Special Episode Julie and Helga look back at a selection of the diverse range of Parkinson's research projects the podcast has featured.

Listen for news about some big changes ahead for the podcast which is now listened to in more than seventy countries worldwide.

This World Parkinson's Day Julie and Helga's message is 'Together we can all help research projects progress towards new treatments and a cure. Volunteer to take part today!'

Professor Heather Mortiboys, Head of Neuroscience and Deputy Dean of the School of Medicine and Population Health at the University of Sheffield is pushing the boundaries of Parkinson's research and drug discovery from every direction. With a particular focus on mitochondria, she has been at the cutting edge of pre-clinical and clinical research, working with cells to develop to models for testing drug compounds. Heather champions public and patient involvement throughout her work and is also deeply committed to mentorship and education, and dedicates significant time to early-career researchers.  

Parkinson's UK Virtual Biotech launched in 2017 funded by donors from across the world, with the aim of speeding up research to reduce the  timescale for finding new treatments from decades down to years.  

Over £130m has been invested in high-potential early-stage projects, many of which are now 'coming-of-age' and in the final stages of clinical trials. 

Dr Lynsey Bilsland is the new Managing Director at the helm of the Virtual Biotech, and the person who's going to lead it into its exciting next phase. Julie and Helga met Lynsey to find out more about her new role and what lies ahead.

To start the fourth series of the podcast we are turning our focus towards the much neglected area of mental health related research.  Just over a year ago Becca Hunsdon from the University of Reading began recruiting participants for her PhD project ‘Moving Forward’, exploring a new online group programme she’d developed to offer psychological support and improve quality of life for people with Parkinson’s. Podcast co-presenter Helga Macfarlane volunteered to take part having never been involved in anything like it before. Over the following eight weeks she found huge value in Becca’s sessions, so along with podcast host Dr Julie Jones invited her into the studio to find out the thinking behind its group based online set-up and how, with her own psychotherapy input weaved throughout, it explores mood, emotions and coping, and reconnects participants with their values to support them through unhelpful thoughts and feelings. 

Landmark is a ground-breaking research programme aimed at accelerating the search for new treatments by applying cutting edge techniques to gain a new level of insight at cellular level into the changes Parkinson's causes in the brain. Principal investigator Professor Michael Johnson from Imperial College London explains the need across the global research community for the new high quality datasets his team will produce. 

The project will use tissue samples from the Parkinson's UK Brain Bank, which was set up 22 years ago as a result of the remarkable foresight of Professor David Dexter, who is now the charity's Director of Research. He explains what it was like to see his vision come to fruition when Landmark was launched. 

The three year research programme brings together a Parkinson's UK led consortium of four major pharmaceutical companies - GSK, Novartis, Roche, and UCB, plus Imperial College London, which was made possible with £4m of funding from the Gatsby charitable foundation. 

https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/m.johnson