Funded Grants

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a serious brain disorder that affects movement, and quality of life for over 10 million people worldwide. Current treatments ease symptoms but do not slow or stop the disease. To develop better therapies, we need to understand the underlying biological processes that drive PD.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects nearly one million Canadians and remains without a cure. Although most research has focused on the build-up of abnormal proteins such as amyloid and tau, we now know that inflammation in the brain’s immune system plays a major role in how the disease starts and progresses.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common brain disorder that gradually affects movement, balance, and coordination. It mainly results from the loss of nerve cells that produce dopamine, a chemical that helps control motion.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects a growing population and poses a significant public health challenge. It is characterized by cognitive decline and memory loss, of which current therapies only manage symptoms or slow disease progression and does not treat the underlying disease progression.

When we dream, our bodies are normally paralyzed so we don’t act out the dream. In isolated REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD), that safety switch fails: people may talk, shout, punch, or kick during sleep. iRBD is important because most people with it will later develop a brain disease like Parkinson’s disease or dementia with Lewy bodies.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia and affects hundreds of thousands of Canadians. Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to its development, but recent research highlights the importance of the brain’s immune system—particularly a specialized immune cell type called microglia.

Prior research has shown that the immune system processes can influence risk of cognitive decline, but the exact mechanisms are not yet understood. Our hypothesis is that we can use genetics to better understand the relationship between the immune system and cognition.