Strategies for slowing, stopping, or reversing Parkinson’s disease
PD is a slowly progressive disorder that affects movement, muscle control, and balance. “Our understanding of PD pathophysiology has vastly improved compared to what we knew 20 years ago,” explained authors Tom Foltynie, MBBS, PhD, Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, UCL Institute of Neurology & The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, UK, and J. William Langston, MD, Associate Director, Stanford Udall Center, Department of Pathology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. “We believe we can be optimistic that the next 20 years will see major breakthroughs towards the discovery of therapies that may slow, stop, or reverse PD.”
The authors summarize recent advances, including identification of the major genetic risks for PD; development of more representative animal models of the disease; early successes using Antisense Oligonucleotide and vaccination approaches in other neurodegenerative diseases; and a translational pipeline of a broad range of repurposed drugs showing the first signals of potential efficacy, which are being driven forward through the various clinical trial stages.