The American Parkinson Disease Association has financially supported research leading to every major breakthrough in the knowledge and treatment of Parkinson’s Disease.

APDA is a 501(c)3 non-profit charitable organization. Founded in 1961, we are the nation’s leading grassroots Parkinson’s organization dedicated to serving patients, family members and caregivers. Our grassroots network includes professionals and volunteers whose skills and talents work toward a common goal. These individuals include researchers, Information and Referral Center Medical Directors and Coordinators, Chapter members and officers.

To date, more than $60 million has been contributed to find the cause and cure.

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In the Western United States, The APDA Center for Advanced Research at UCLA provides a source of novel research and new investigators in Parkinson’s disease. The success of the Center is based on the concentration of interactive basic and clinical investigators with expertise in Parkinson’s disease or complementary fields at UCLA. The Center builds upon the already established climate of collaboration and interaction among investigators at the Center and at UCLA in general.

The Center also benefits from the unprecedented expansion of the neuroscience community at UCLA, with the ongoing recruitment of both young and established investigators in the field. The Center benefits both the scientific and clinical community. An emphasis on translational research (from bench to bedside) is a top priority of the Brain Research Institute and the Department of Neurology at UCLA and guides the activities of the Center.

The goal of the Center is to foster continuing interactions among this group and new research initiatives in Parkinson’s disease at UCLA. The APDA Center for Advanced Research has an enormous impact on Parkinson’s research at UCLA by providing a unique incentive and support for new projects and collaborations, and by establishing a way to recruit the outstanding scientific expertise existing at UCLA to research on Parkinson’s disease.

The National Institutes of Health has recognized the Center as a Udall Center of Excellence for being one of the twelve best university research facilities in the nation, and has the distinction of being named the only Udall Center of Excellence west of the Mississippi. The N.I.H. has awarded the Center a 5 million dollar research grant. The Center is also supported through its funding as a Center for Advanced Research by The American Parkinson Disease Association, Inc. UCLA is one of 5 APDA Centers to be recognized as a Udall Center of Excellence. UCLA proudly joins Emory University, The University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, and The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville Florida for this honor. The Center opened in 2000.

Parkinson’s disease has been a focus for both basic and clinical research at UCLA for many years, including the seminal work of Dr. C.H. Markham on the use of L-DOPA in the sixties, and more recently with the development of an active neurosurgical program, which includes a unique combination of imaging and behavioral research.

The Center’s Director, Marie-FranÇoise Chesselet, MD, Ph.D., joined the Department of Neurology at UCLA in 1996 as the holder of the Charles H. Markham Chair in Neurology. She has twenty five years of research experience in various aspects of basal ganglia organization and function, and has co-authored over 100 publications in the field. Her research on the basal ganglia is currently supported by 2 major federal grants, one being a MERIT award from the NIMH.

The Center for the Study of Parkinson’s Disease at UCLA comprises a dynamic group of young and established investigators who are actively engaged in basic and clinical research relevant to Parkinson’s Disease. The Center is directed by Marie-FranÇoise Chesselet, MD, Ph.D., Charles H. Markham Professor of Neurology. Expertise in the Center ranges from neuroimaging (John Mazziota), molecular studies and in vivo gene transfer (Allan Tobin), stereotaxic neurosurgery (Antonio De Salles), clinical neurology (Jeff Bronstein), basal ganglia electrophysiology (Michael Levine), basal ganglia and cognition in humans (Barbara Knowlton), enuroengineering (Jack Judy, Bruce Dunn and Harold Monbouquette), genomics (Leena Pertonen), epidemiology (Beate Ritz), growth factors (Jeff Twiss), stem cells (H. Kronblum) and functional neuroanatomy of the basal ganglia (Marie-FranÇoise Chesselet). These key investigators have a history of active collaboration.
 

Collaboration in Parkinson’s Disease Research at UCLA

• Collaboration between geneticists and epidemiologists
  to identify new risk factors.
• Collaboration between molecular biologists and neurobiologists
  to identify new drugs.
• Collaboration between engineers and neurobiologists
  to improve surgical approaches.
• Collaboration between private sector and neurobiologists
  to develop stem cell therapy.

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