2007 Awards Raise APDA Research Funding to More Than $30 million; Ninth Center for Advance Research Included in Increased Funding
The American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) has announced its 2007-2008 fiscal year research awards, which total more than $3.5 million and include its ninth Center for Advanced Research, creation of a $100,000 contingency fund for research to assure projects in progress from being lost to institution budget cuts, and the establishment of a dedicated post-graduate geriatric psychiatry grant.
(PRWEB) June 18, 2007
The American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA), www. apdaparkinson. org, has announced its 2007-2008 fiscal year research awards, which total more than $3.5 million and include its ninth Center for Advanced Research, creation of a $100,000 contingency fund for research to assure projects in progress from being lost to institution budget cuts, and the establishment of a dedicated post-graduate geriatric psychiatry grant. It also increased its Centers for Advanced Research allocation from $100,000 a year for five years to $125,000 annually for the same period. The awards bring APDA’s total Parkinson’s disease research contribution to more than $30 million since its inception.
The University of Chicago was chosen to join the schools of medicine at Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.; UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson, New Brunswick, N. J.; Boston University, Boston, Mass.; and UCLA, Los Angeles, Cal.; the medical centers at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.; and the Universities of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Alabama at Birmingham, as Centers for Advanced Research. Un Jung Kang, MD, is the new advanced center’s director.
Two Dr. George C. Cotzias Memorial Fellowships, an $80,000 grant for each of three years, were awarded to Talene Yacoubian, MD, PhD at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Bradley Miller, MD, PhD at the University of Virginia. The fellowship is named for George C. Cotzias, MD, a pathfinder in pharmacological exploration of brain functions and in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease with levodopa, which more than 40 years later is still the gold standard of PD medication therapy.
Princeton University PhD, Jeffry Stock, and Andrei Alexandrescu, PhD, of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, were named Roger C. Duvoisin, MD grant recipients, an award of $80,000 for two consecutive years.
APDA’s Scientific Advisory Board, which reviews and recommends all research allocations to the APDA board of directors, also chose 31 research grants and 11 post-graduate grants and four summer medical student fellowships.
Researchers at 24 institutions across the country received one-time $50,000 research grants including two at Georgetown University, Washington, D. C.; Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md.; the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Tex.; Columbia University, New York, N. Y.; UCLA, Los Angeles, Cal.; and three at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
One-year, $35,000 post-doctoral fellowships was awarded to two scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, as well as researchers at the University of Rochester, N. Y.; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women Hospital, Boston; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Mass.; Columbia University, the University of Virginia and Washington University.
APDA was founded in 1961 with the dual mission to “Ease the Burden - Find the Cure” for Parkinson’s disease and has grown into the country’s largest grassroots organization serving persons with PD and their caregivers. In addition to its $30 million research funding, APDA has contributed more than $28 million to patient and caregiver support through its network of 62 Information & Referral Centers and 800 support groups across the country.
“We take our mission very seriously,” said APDA president Vincent Gattullo, “and are extremely proud that we have been a funding partner in every scientific breakthrough in Parkinson’s disease since we were founded 46 years ago.”
Contact:
K. G. Whitford
718-981-8001 ext. 125
Www. apdaparkinson. org
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