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---------- Forwarded Message ---------- PDTrials. org Bulletin June 2007 • Clinical Trial Information for the Parkinson's Community In This Issue New Clinical Trials New Treatment Promising for Parkinson's Blood Pressure Drug May Slow Parkinson's Neural Stem Cells Reduce Parkinson's Symptoms In Monkeys Novel Parkinson's Disease Drug Target Identified Raising Trust in Parkinson's Clinical Trials Help Inform Others About Clinical Trials! Resources Do You Have Questions About Clinical Research? Order A Free Clinical Trial Informational Brochure Greetings! Thank you for signing up to receive the PDtrials Bulletin. This regular email newsletter provides you with information on Parkinson's disease (PD) clinical trials that are actively looking for participants, as well as news on Parkinson's research and treatments. PDtrials is a collaborative initiative of Parkinson's organizations and is dedicated to increasing awareness and education about Parkinson's clinical trials. Please contact us if you would like more information about this effort. New Clinical Trials Safety Study of Isradipine (A Potential Neuroprotective Agent) in People with Parkinson's Disease - Researchers at Northwestern University have been working on the physiology of cell death in PD for many years. Their work suggests that pre-treatment of dopamine neurons by isradipine, an FDA-approved agent widely used for treatment of high blood pressure, is a potential means of neuroprotection. Learn more Study of Specific Genetic Factors in People with Parkinson's Disease and Their Relatives - PD is a neurological condition that was originally thought to develop from environmental factors. More recently, genetic factors have been implicated. This study will examine the phenotypic presentation of people with PD due to a specific defect in a gene (LRRK-2). Learn more SLV 308 in People with Advanced Parkinson's Disease Experiencing Motor Disturbances - This is a study of 12 weeks treatment with SLV 308 as an adjunctive treatment (treatment in addition to levodopa) for participants with advanced PD. The study is planned for 85 centers in 13 countries and is intended to enroll 280 participants globally, 90 of which will be in the U.S. Learn more New Treatment Promising for Parkinson's An experimental treatment for PD seemed to improve symptoms - dramatically so, for one 59-year-old man - without causing side effects in an early study of a dozen patients. The gene therapy treatment involved slipping billions of copies of a gene into the brain to calm overactive brain circuitry. The small study focused on testing the safety of the procedure rather than its effectiveness, and experts cautioned it's too soon to draw conclusions about how well it works. But they called the results promising and said the approach merits further studies.Read more Blood Pressure Drug May Slow Parkinson's Gloria E. Meredith, Ph.D., collaborated with D. James Surmeier, Ph.D. and other scientists at Northwestern University to study the drug, isradipine, and its possible effects on PD. Findings indicated that isradipine slowed the disease process and destruction of the dopamine- producing neurons. Results from the mouse model indicate that if the drug works in humans, then it could be used as a means to prevent the onset of this disease or slow its progression.Read more Neural Stem Cells Reduce Parkinson's Symptoms In Monkeys Primates with severe PD were able to walk, move, and eat better, and had diminished tremors after being injected with human neural stem cells, a research team from Yale, Harvard, the University of Colorado, and the Burnham Institute report today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "These results are promising, but it will be years before it is known whether a similar procedure would have therapeutic value for humans," said the lead author, D. Eugene Redmond Jr., professor of psychiatry and neurosurgery at Yale.Read more Novel Parkinson's Disease Drug Target Identified Researchers at the Massachusetts General Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) have identified a potential new drug target for the treatment of PD and possibly for other degenerative neurological disorders. In an upcoming issue of the journal Science, the investigators describe finding, in cellular and animal models, that blocking the action of an enzyme called SIRT2 can protect the neurons damaged in PD from the toxic effects of alpha- synuclein, a protein that accumulates in the brains of Parkinson's patients.Read more Raising Trust in Parkinson's Clinical Trials Some great day in the future, medical science will declare that at long last a cure has been found for Parkinson's. We do not yet know what that cure will entail and require. But we can be reasonably certain that a significant part of it will be the result of widespread clinical trials. There is, however, a problem. Less than one percent of people with Parkinson's participate in PD clinical trials - far short of the number that scientists need in the next several years to test treatments in the pipeline. To address the obstacles to participation, the Parkinson's Disease Foundation (PDF) decided to stage a roundtable, Building Patient Trust: A New Era of Clinical Research Rights and Responsibilities.Read more SEE website at : www.pdtrials.org ------------------------------------------------------- Linda Herman Parkinson Pipeline Project www.pdpipeline.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn