Purines in Parkinson's: from epidemiology of caffeine and urate to therapeutics

Published on June 2, 2014   62 min

A selection of talks on Neurology

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0:00
Hello. My name is Michael Schwarzschild, at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston. And I am pleased to present our work, and that of others, on purines in Parkinson's disease, from epidemiology of caffeine and urate to therapeutics. As by way of disclosure, I have no financial conflict of interest or commercial relationship, relevant to this presentation.
0:28
I will review for you some of the work from our laboratory on the Charlestown Navy Yard campus of MassGeneral Hospital and the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease. But most of the work that I'll be talking about reflects attributions across disciplines and with many collaborators. As you can see here, in addition to the signature USS Constitution from the Navy Yard, there is also at an early stage, the Lenny Zakim Bridge, that connects the Charlestown Navy Yard to Boston and MassGeneral Hospital proper, that we've adopted over the years, as a metaphor for the translational work that we do.
1:11
Here you can see some of the art work that was kindly donated by a local artist, Don Eyles, depicting that metaphor during its construction over a decade ago now, and again reflecting our translational goals in year focused on purines as protectants in Parkinson's disease. And so, over the course of the talk, broadly I'll hope to illustrate how epidemiology of reduced risks of Parkinson's disease, in particular, are valuable clues for developing novel therapies to slow progression of the disease. And then I'll give an overview of two examples that we've pursued, one adenosine A2A receptor antagonism, with caffeine being a nonspecific adenosine A2A antagonist, having emerged as a realistic multi-faceted potential new therapy on the threshold of clinical use in Parkinson's disease. In the second half, I'll focus on another example of how urate has emerged really originally from its biology in evolution, to clues that have been pursued in the laboratory, and by epidemiologists, with the convergence of those findings, leading us to pursue clinical application.

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