Discovering disease modifying therapies for Parkinson's disease using a drug repurposing approach

This overall aim of this investigation is to develop new, or enhance existing, bioinformatics resources to aid the identification of novel strategies, based upon drug repurposing, for providing neuroprotection in Parkinson's disease. Thomas will be involved with each stage of this strategy from the bioinformatics through to final in vivo testing of efficacy in rodent models of Parkinson's disease. Thomas will therefore gain expertise in a range of technical skills such as: bioinformatics; cell culture; microarray techniques; ELISA; rodent models of Parkinson's disease; behavioural assessments; immunohistochemistry. Specifically, we hypothesise that FDA-approved drugs that boost production of growth factors such as neurturin, which has been shown to be protective when infused into patients' brains, or suppress transcription of genes that are upregulated or risk-associated in Parkinson's (e.g. alpha-synuclein), will offer neuroprotection in Parkinson's. The exact proteins will be deduced from the initial bioinformatics work.