Parkinson’s disease research collaboration awarded by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Today, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), co-founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, announced over 51 million USD in funding to launch the its Neurodegeneration Challenge Network. One of the nine collaborative science teams awarded is Profiling and Defining Parkinson’s Disease, involving SciLifeLab contributors.
This awarded Swedish partnership around Parkinson’s disease is set up to systematically analyze and provide an understanding of the cell types and molecular mechanisms involved in this incurable progressive neurodegenerative disorder. The disease affects a growing proportion of the aging population, and its cause is largely unknown.
The team is coordinated by Ernest Arenas (Karolinska Institutet) and also includes Per Svenningsson (Karolinska Institutet), Sten Linnarsson (Karolinska Institutet/SciLifeLab) and Mats Nilsson (Stockholm University/SciLifeLab). They will receive financial support of 1 050 000 USD from CZI.
“We are very excited about this project since we hope that the cell maps we are going to generate in it can help revealing the cause of Parkinson’s disease”, says Mats Nilsson.
“In this project we will use diverse single-cell technologies to address neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease”, Ernest Arenas explains. “Our goal is to obtain disruptive knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of disease and identify new targets for therapeutic intervention.”
Sten Linnarsson anticipates this research approach to become more important going forward:
“Single-cell biology has already revolutionized basic biomedical research, and is now poised to have a real impact in translational and clinical sciences”, he says.
Read the press release by CZI
Read a in-depth Medium blog post by CZI
Read about the awarded researchers and projects of the Neurodegeneration Challenge Network
About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was launched in December 2015 by Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, and Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician and founder and CEO of The Primary School in East Palo Alto. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a new kind of philanthropy that seeks to engineer change at scale. By pairing world-class engineering with grant-making, impact investing, policy, and advocacy work, CZI hopes to build a future for everyone. Initial areas of focus include supporting science through basic biomedical research and education through personalized learning. CZI is also exploring ways to address barriers to justice and opportunity—from criminal justice reform, to expanded access, to economic opportunity and affordable housing.
