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A researcher at the University of Missouri-Kansas City is part of a team that thinks it's made a breakthrough on Parkinson's disease, KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reported Friday. Dr. Anthony Cooper said he believes the team has found how Parkinson's begins with cellular damage and how it's possible to repair the damage. Cooper said they've found a primary defect that causes the problem. "It may not be the only way to get it, but we're pretty sure it's at least one way to get Parkinson's disease," Cooper said. Inside a brain cell, protein is created by a unit called endoplasma reticulum. That protein is refined by another unit called a golgi. There is also a delicate amount of an element called alpha-synuclein, which sometimes becomes misshaped and disrupts the protein's path. The element is sidetracked to the side of the cell, where it clusters together and kills the cell. The death of the brain cell leads to Parkinson's disease, and Cooper believes the deformed alpha-synuclein is the problem. "I have no doubt about it. It's the primary defect in the cells we're looking at," Cooper said. Cooper and his team believe they know how to fix the problem. When the deformed elements cluster at the cell's surface, they overwhelm another element called Rab-1. When the researchers enhance Rab-1 in experiments using brain cells of rats, the internal structure of the cell goes back to normal. "So, the fact that we can reduce the symptoms of Parkinson's in rat brains holds promise because their cells are similar and could lead to some promise for humans who suffer from this disease," Cooper said. Cooper said the research is not a cure, but it is substantial progress in the disease. Mahoney reported that about 60,000 new cases of Parkinson's disease are diagnosed every year in the United States. The condition usually develops after 65, but 15 percent of those diagnosed are under 50. On The Web www.ParkinsonHeartland ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn