Hello, DCoP members! This is our quarterly topic where you all can share the work you’ve been doing, including papers or pre-prints you’ve written or been involved with, or talks you’ve given. Please use this thread to add links to any relevant articles that you have written recently, or to link to slides and/or recordings of your conference presentations.
Additionally, we encourage you to share what funding you are applying for and/or what grant programs you are aware of which will be opening/closing soon. Whether these programs are listed in @danieltds 's recent post “Grant providers for neurodegenerative disease research” or fall outside that list, other community members may find it helpful to hear how you and your colleagues are navigating the funding landscape.
We love hearing what you’re working on, and sharing your projects can be a great way to make connections or foster new collaborations. Thanks to everyone who shared on the Q1 2025 Topic – it’s very cool to see the breadth of topics that you’re focusing on.
Really looking forward to seeing your work and hearing your input!
In a recent post, @vdardov recently shared this AMP ALS funding opportunity. While this isn’t a PD research funding opportunity, perhaps some of our colleagues in the community work in ALS and would would be a good fit! Thanks for sharing, @vdardov!
Apologies for the short notice, but there will be a Q&A session tomorrow for the GP2 Underrepresented Populations PhD program at 3pm BST.
Folks can register for the webinar here: link.
And learn more about the program itself, here: link.
Hello DCoP members! We are pleased to announce the MJFF Molecular MRI funding opportunity. This funding program seeks to accelerate the development, validation and clinical translation of molecular MRI biomarkers that target key pathways implicated in Parkinson’s disease pathophysiology including endolysosomal dysfunction, mitochondrial impairment, and neuroinflammation & immune dysregulation. Full proposals are due on July 14th, 2025, 5pm ET.
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Hi all, here is our GWAS of pain trajecorties in early stage PD that leveraged Fox Insight. It was published earlier this year after a lengthy editorial mishap at the journal. This was a key chapter in a doctoral student’s dissertation. Here is the abstract:
Pain is a common and complex non-motor symptom in people with Parkinson’s disease (PWP). Little is known about the genetic drivers of pain in PWP, and progress in its study has been challenging. Here, we conducted two genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify genetic variants associated with pain experienced during the earliest stages of Parkinson’s disease. The study population consisted of 4,159 PWP of European ancestry who were mapped to five previously-described, longitudinal pain trajectories. In the first GWAS, the extreme pain trajectories (highest burden versus no significant pain over time) were compared, and in the second GWAS, a multinomial approach was undertaken. While no variant reached genome-wide significance, we identified promising associations, such as rs117108018 (ORGWAS−Extreme=8.96, pGWAS−Extreme=2.5 × 10− 7), a brain/nerve eQTL for L3MBTL3 and EPB41L2 , and rs61881484 (pGWAS−Multinomial=2 × 10− 7), which intersects a transcription factor peak targeting CREB1 , critical in sensory neuron synaptic plasticity and neuropathic pain regulation. Gene-based tests implicated CTNNB1 (pGWAS−Extreme=3.2 × 10− 5), KLK7 (pGWAS−Extreme=7 × 10− 5), and SLITRK3 (pGWAS−Multinomial=3.2 × 10− 5), which have been associated with neurodevelopment. At the pathway-level, there was an enrichment for genes involved in neurotransmitter regulation and opioid dependence. This study implicates neuropathic pain mechanisms as prominent drivers of elevated pain in PWP, suggests potential therapeutic genetic targets for further research.
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Thanks for sharing this opportunity, @bmarebwa! Just a reminder to folks that the full proposal deadline for the MJFF Molecular MRI funding program is one month away, on July 14th, 2025, at 5pm ET.
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Hi everyone, I wanted to share the call for a Special Issue I’m guest editing. npj Dementia is a newer journal in the nature portfolio, and this issue is dedicated to Diversity in Dementia Research
https://www.nature.com/collections/gdhfdhfbbc
Since it’s a new journal, they don’t have the impact factor yet and they have waivers available so you wouldn’t need to pay for the publication fees. Our goal was to have the diversity theme for real-world applicability, I’m hoping to see some Parkinson’s disease dementia & dementia with Lewy bodies representation in there, so please consider any papers you might have that fits in with the topic!
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