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A genome-wide association study (GWAS) on Parkinson's Disease, said to be one of the largest in the country, has received an award of $2.3 million from the US-based Michel J Fox Foundation.
The study is an Indo-German collaborative research proposal, titled Genetic Architecture of Parkinson’s Disease, led by the Comprehensive Care Centre for Movement Disorders at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Thiruvananthapuram, and the Centre for Genetic Epidemiology, University of Tuebingen, Germany.
An official spokesperson said the award was won under the Fox Genetic Diversity in the Parkinson’s Disease programme and was submitted by Manu Sharma from the University of Tubingen and Asha Kishore, Movement Disorders Specialist, and Director, SCTIMST.
A consortium of movement disorder specialists, neurologists and geneticists from 20 Indian centres are co-investigators in the multi-centre, international study, along with the team in Germany led by Manu Sharma.
The SCTIMST, as the lead nodal centre in India, is joined by other nodal centres of AIIMS, New Delhi, NIMHANS, Bengaluru and the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad.
Also involved are 16 sub-centres including PGI Chandigarh; AIIMS Rishikesh; Institute of Neurosciences, Kolkata; Vikram Hospital, Bengaluru; Vijaya Institute of Clinical and Medical Research, Chennai; PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Coimbatore; Goa Medical College; Lourdes Hospital, Ernakulam; Global Hospital; Jaslok Hospital, Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Mumbai and Narayana Hridayalaya, Bengaluru.
Variants as risk factors
The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, and the Centre for Genetic Epidemiology, Tubingen, will be the Indian and German genetic laboratories which will conduct the molecular, biological, and advanced analytics of the genetic data.
A study among populations in the West as well as East Asian regions has identified about 20 genetic variants as risk factors for the disease. It has been found necessary to do the same in India to capture the genetic variants that pose a risk for the progressively degenerative disease among Indian patients.
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