Dr. Jacqueline Burré, associate professor of neuroscience and co-director for the Graduate Program in neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine, and a team of researchers were recently awarded an R01 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke expected to be $3.9M over five years. The grant will fund a project titled “Changes in synaptic vesicle-binding of alpha-synuclein as an early biomarker for synucleinopathies.”
“The study aims to identify early disease-driving changes and utilize these changes as an early biomarker for Parkinson’s Disease which is currently non-existent" said Dr. Burré. The neurodegeneration that leads to Parkinson’s Disease precedes diagnosis by up to a decade or more, with constipation being one of the earliest symptoms. Lewy bodies, the key pathological feature of Parkinson’s disease in the brain, are also found in the enteric nervous system in the gut. We will query changes in the enteric nervous system as proxy for pathogenic changes in the brain, both in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease and in human tissue obtained through routine screening colonoscopy. We expect our study to not only lead to a better understanding of pathogenic changes in alpha-synuclein and of neuronal vulnerability in the gut and brain, but to also pave the way for the development of a new biomarker targeting prodromal Parkinson’s disease.
The team consists of basic and clinical faculty spanning multiple disciplines. Members include Dr. Manu Sharma, associate professor of neuroscience; Dr. Carl Crawford, assistant professor of clinical medicine; Dr. Alexander Shtilbans, assistant professor of neurology; Dr. Andrea Yoo, assistant professor of clinical neurology; and Dr. Daniel Barone, associate professor of clinical neurology.