UKPDSTB General: Brain Bank Bulletin issue 5, page 1

Brain Bank Bulletin

Issue 5

Winter 2005

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.

Tissue Bank collects its 100th brain!

Inside this issue:

Tissue Bank collects its 100th brain! 1

Running for the PDS 1

Drug Targets for Treatment 2

Number of donations 2

PDS Research Agenda 3

Registered Donors 4

Contact Information 4

Future Branch Talks 4

Notices 4

Our Team 4

In June 2005, the PDS Tissue Bank at Imperial College collected its 100th brain! This is great news and means that we can supply even more scientists with valuable tissue to carry on their work to combat Parkinson's. However, we are still collecting brain tissue donated by people affected by Parkinson’s related disorders at a quicker rate than we are from healthy donors. For every request for brain tissue from researchers we not only have to supply tissue from a group of Parkinson's donors but also from a group of healthy donors. This enables researchers to examine brain function in healthy tissue for a comparison. Hence, we need more healthy potential donors to sign up to the Tissue Bank scheme. You could help by passing this newsletter onto friends or work colleagues who may be interested in the good work carried out by the Tissue Bank and how they can make a valuable contribution to research.

You may also be asking "If we have collected 100 brains why do we need to carry on collecting tissue"? Indeed, the brain is a large structure but many of brain regions affected by Parkinson's are very small. For example one of the principle brain areas affected in Parkinson's, the substantia nigra is only about the size of your thumbnail. Such parts of the brain are in great demand and get utilised quickly by researchers, hence we need a constant flow of tissue being donated to the Tissue Bank. On behalf of the Tissue Bank and the Parkinson's Disease Society we would like to thank you all, particularly the families of those who have donated tissue, for your contribution to support Parkinson’s research.

Dr David Dexter
Scientific Director

Running in support of the PDS

Dr Kirstin Goldring, the Tissue Bank Manager, along with a team of 83 runners (including 8 with Parkinson's) completed the 25th London Marathon in aid of the PDS. Kirstin managed to finish in a time of 4 hours 38 minutes well under her aim of 5 hours and managed to raise over £1600 in the process.

It was a lovely day and the PDS were really well supported all along the route and hope to raise £210,000 from the event.

Congratulations to all those who took part and supported the event!

Members of the Tissue Bank team, Kirstin Goldring, Helen Cairns, Louisa Djerbib and Laura McKay will all be running for the PDS in the Hydro Active women's 5km run in Hyde Park on Sunday 4th September.