The PDS Tissue Bank at Imperial aims to help understand what causes Parkinson's and assist in the development of better drug treatments by providing high quality brain tissue to researchers working in the field of Parkinson's and related neurological disorders. The Tissue Bank also aims to enhance the public's awareness of Parkinson's, promote the work of the Tissue Bank and increase the numbers of volunteers who are willing to sign up to the donor scheme. The Tissue Bank also aims to collect the tissue so that it is suitable for all research needs and that it is collected in the most ethical manner.

The Weakest Link

The challenge for Parkinson’s researchers lies in unravelling the complex mechanisms that bring about nerve cell death in people with Parkinson's. The ultimate aim is to understand Parkinson’s and design effective treatments and ultimately find a cure for the disease. The Parkinson’s Disease Society Tissue Bank plays an important role in achieving these research goals but many people do not realise how important the research on human tissue is. Parkinson’s only affects humans and hence the brain tissue donated via the Tissue Bank is one of the only ways that researchers can investigate what is causing the nerve cells in Parkinson’s to die! These vital clues from the brain tissue will lead to the development of new drugs to treat Parkinson’s and hopefully a cure.

Hence, if scientists are to examine what is causing the brain cells in younger Parkinson's to die and to see whether this is the same as in people who develop the disease later on in life, we need people with young onset Parkinson's to sign up to the Tissue Bank donor scheme as well. At the moment the "weakest link" in the Tissue Bank’s program is that we have very little tissue from younger onset Parkinson’s cases to give out to researchers. In addition we have very few people with younger onset Parkinson’s signed up to our donor scheme. Hence, if you are a person who was affected by Parkinson’s at a younger age and require some further information about our donor scheme please do not hesitate to contact the Tissue Bank. Your tissue could be vital to our work. Also if you have any younger onset members in your PDS branch or an associated YAPP&Rs group please do forward this newsletter on to them.

Parkinson's Awareness Week (PAW) takes place between 18th April and the 25th April 2004. This year the overall theme is "care and support". There is also particular focus on Parkinson's Disease Nurse Specialists (PDNS). If any branches or PDNS’s are organising an event for the week and would like to display some information about the Tissue Bank please contact us (see back page).

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