Project Aim(s): The development of neurotrophic factor therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD).

Project Aim(s): To support national and local Parkinson’s disease service planning by three linked work packages.

The first maps the prevalence of Parkinson’s disease and service availability for people with Parkinson’s, across each of the nine Community Healthcare Organisation regions in Ireland, to highlight mismatches between population needs and service provision.

One promising approach for the treatment of PD is cellular brain repair whereby the cells that have died in the condition are replaced by transplantation of healthy cells into the brain. However, this approach has faced several limitations including poor survival of the transplanted cells in the PD brain. To address this limitation, we have recently shown that biomaterials - that is, materials that have been specifically engineered to interact with living systems for therapeutic purposes – have the potential to dramatically improve cellular brain repair for PD.

Numerous clinical trials have shown that neurons can be transplanted into the Parkinson’s diseased brain to replace the dopamine neurons that have died as a result of the disease process. However, to date, there is no established source of neurons that can be used for widespread application of this therapy. This project is investigating stem cells extracted from the bone marrow as a potential cell source for brain repair and/or protection.

BrainMatTrain focuses on a comprehensive understanding of Parkinson’s disease, from basics to translation, fully supported by eight full partners (four research institutions, two hospitals, two SMEs) and one partner organisation (SME specialist in device design). This European Training Network will educate and train 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in functionalised biomaterials, materials science, functionalisation strategies, molecular biology, stem cell biology, in vitro model systems, in vivo neuroimaging, preclinical models and prototype design.