Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a disabling brain disorder that affects movements, cognition, sleep, and other normal functions. Unfortunately, there is no current cure—and the disease worsens over time. It's estimated that by 2037, 1.6 million people in the U.S. will have Parkinson’s disease, at an economic cost approaching $80 billion. Research indicates that protein or peptide abnormalities play a key role in the onset and worsening of this disease. Gaining a better understanding of this—with the help of data science—could provide important clues for the development of new pharmacotherapies to slow the progression or cure Parkinson’s disease.

Current efforts have resulted in complex clinical and neurobiological data on over 10,000 subjects for broad sharing with the research community. A number of important findings have been published using this data, but clear biomarkers or cures are still lacking.

Competition host, the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Parkinson’s Disease (AMP®PD), is a public-private partnership between government, industry, and nonprofits that is managed through the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). The Partnership created the AMP PD Knowledge Platform, which includes a deep molecular characterization and longitudinal clinical profiling of Parkinson’s disease patients, with the goal of identifying and validating diagnostic, prognostic, and/or disease progression biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease.

Your work could help in the search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease, which would alleviate the substantial suffering and medical care costs of patients with this disease.

• Malshan Keerthichandra
• Pavan Pasindu
• Sanujen
• Kobinath