News

June 2026

• A collaboration involving PO1 Project and Core Leaders Alice Chen-Plotkin, Kelvin Luk, and Edward Lee resulted in our recent report in Neuron, showing that anti-GPNMB antibodies can block formation of alpha-synuclein pathology in neurons. This work, which follows our 2022 finding that the Parkinson's disease genetic risk locus rs199347 belongs to the target gene GPNMB, and that the encoded protein GPNMB is necessary and sufficient for cells to internalize alpha-synuclein fibrils, was also featured in a Penn Medicine press release: https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/immune-protein-a-possible-target-to-slow-parkinsons-disease.
   
• PO1 PI Alice Chen-Plotkin was recently appointed to the Federal Advisory Council on Parkinson’s Research, Care, and Services, charged by Congress to advise on the National Plan to End Parkinson’s. The inaugural meeting took place on June 29, 2026.
   
• Daniel Weintraub, Clinical Core Leader, and the team's recent publication of PDAQ-27 uses Clinical Core participants to validate and is being used in PPMI study now too. 
  "The Penn Parkinson’s Daily Activities Questionnaire-27 (PDAQ-27) is a 27-item measure of cognitive instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) for Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients developed by integrating 12 additional items with the original 15-item PDAQ-15 via mixed-methods research with the goal of creating a more balanced and sensitive instrument. Results presented in this paper show that the PDAQ-27 is a promising measure of cognition-related IADLs in patients with PD, with solid cross-sectional psychometric performance."
  The full paper can be read here. 

March 2026

• Congratulations to Dr.  Esteban Luna, MD, PhD! He is a recipient of the 2026 Next Generation Research Grant from the American Brain Foundation, Alzheimer’s Association, and American Academy of Neurology in Lewy body dementia. 
  https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/2026-next-generation-research-grant-recipients/

• PO1 investigators Alice Chen-Plotkin, George Kannarkat, and Kelvin Luk, together with Miranda Lim of Oregon Health and Science University and David Walt of Harvard Medical School,  were awarded the American Brain Foundation Cure One Cure Many Award in Lewy Body Dementia for their efforts to develop biomarkers for Lewy Body Dementia diagnosis. You can read more about it here: https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/2026-cure-one-cure-many-awards/#lewy.
   

November 2025

• PO1 Resource Core Director Edward Lee's work on air pollution and effects on neurological symptoms is featured in the New York Times.

October 2025

• On Friday, October 17, 2025, PO1 Center Investigators gathered at a Symposium to celebrate the many accomplishments of Project II Leader Virginia Lee. Trainees from all eras of her illustrious career gave talks on neurodegeneration and the impact she has had on their careers. 

2025

• Drs. Tropea, Irwin and Weintraub were recently awarded a grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and its Neuronal Synuclein Disease Endotypes 2024 program for a project titled "Examining the role of concomitant Alzheimer's on alpha-synuclein pathological burden".  The $400,000 grant is examining the role of concomitant Alzheimer's disease pathology on alpha-synuclein pathological burden.  This grant will utilize clinical, biomarker and pathology data from the NIA P01.

June 2025

• Center investigators Alice Chen-Plotkin and George Kannarkat show that alpha-synuclein conformations in plasma may differ between Parkinson's Disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. In collaboration with the David Walt lab at Harvard, center investigators develop methods to measure alpha-synuclein in plasma extracellular vesicles. 

May 2025

• Center Investigator Alice Chen-Plotkin, collaborating with Dan Weintraub, Eddie Lee, and Vivianna Van Deerlin, links Parkinson’s disease genetic risk variants to lysosomal biomarker measures..

April 2025

• Core Leader Sharon Xie develops new approaches to Cox regression.

September 2024

• Center Investigator Virginia Lee offers her take on synucleinopathies in a new review in Neuron.” Red text should be linked to take on synucleinopathies in a new review in Neuron.
• Clinical Core Leader Dan Weintraub leads a study investigating long-term dementia risk in Parkinson's disease and finds that dementia in PD occurs less frequently, or later in the disease course, than previous studies have indicated. 

March 2024

• Center Investigator David Irwin, collaborating with Alice Chen-Plotkin, Virginia Lee, Eddie Lee, and Dan Weintraub, investigates tau maturation in Lewy body disease and Alzheimer’s disease with digital histology.

Our program is funded by the National Institute on Aging. You can read the full article here.