American Parkinson Disease Association Awards More Than $3.7 Million to Research

    NEW YORK, July 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Parkinson
 Disease Association (APDA) has announced its 2008 research awards, which
 include a Dr. George C. Cotzias Memorial Fellowship, a Dr. Roger Duvoisin,
 MD Grant, 31 research grants, 13 post-graduate grants, and six summer
 medical student fellowships.
 
     David Hinkle, MD, PhD at the University of Pittsburgh was awarded the
 Cotzias fellowship that carries an $80,000 award for each of three years,
 based upon progress review by the Scientific Advisory Board, which
 recommends all research funding. The fellowship is named after George C.
 Cotzias, 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 primary PD medication therapy.
 
     Brown University PhD, Marc Tatar, received the awarded named for Roger
 C. Duvoisin, MD, an award of $80,000 for two consecutive years.
 
     The progress of two active Cotzias fellowships and Duvoisin grants were
 also reviewed and accepted.
 
     Researchers at 27 institutions across the country received one-time
 $50,000 research grants including four at the University of Alabama at
 Birmingham; and two at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
 Baltimore, Case Western Reserve University, and Massachusetts General
 Hospital. Others were awarded to researchers at the Universities of
 Pittsburgh, Kentucky, Chicago, Florida, Illinois, California (Jolla),
 Southern California (Los Angeles), Miami and Tennessee; Case Western
 Reserve, Emory, Columbia, Louisiana State, Northwestern, Purdue and
 Louisiana State universities; Buck Institute for Age Research; the State
 University of New York (Buffalo), University of Texas Southwestern Medical
 Center; Portland VA Research Hospital; Lake Forest Hospital; Brentwood
 Biomedical Research Institute; and Penn State Hershey College of Medicine.
 
     One-year, $35,000 post-doctoral fellowships were awarded to two
 scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as researchers at the
 Universities of Virginia, Washington, Alabama, Texas (Galveston), Chicago,
 Pennsylvania and Colorado; Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research; and
 Johns Hopkins University.
 
     Summer Medical Student Fellowships, $4,000 one-year awards to students
 to perform supervised laboratory or clinical PD research, are designed to
 encourage their interest in future research work. Two students from the
 University of Pennsylvania and one each from Johns Hopkins University, the
 University of Massachusetts Medical School, Penn State College of Medicine
 and the University of Cincinnati received awards this year.
 
     Dr. Frederick G. Wooten of the University of Virginia Medical Center is
 the SAB chairman and Dr. Paul Maestrone is APDA's director for scientific
 and medical affairs.
 
 
 

SOURCE American Parkinson Disease Association