NEW YORK, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research announced $710,000 in total funding to seven research teams for projects leveraging existing data and patient populations to initially characterize Parkinson's disease subtypes -- distinct forms of the disease that may differ in onset, progression and response to treatment.

"One of the most frustrating aspects of Parkinson's disease -- for patients, researchers and clinicians alike -- is the significant variability in how the disease manifests itself from patient to patient," said Sarah Orsay, chief executive officer of the Foundation.

"The retrospective studies funded under PD Subtypes aim to analyze data already gathered on different forms of the disease. This analysis could yield valuable information with potential to improve clinicians' ability to treat patients with existing therapies. It could also advance development of new treatments and enable better design of future clinical trials."

Applicants under PD Subtypes were required to propose research that would make use of existing data from well-characterized populations of Parkinson's patients. Several researchers will mine specific databases established by their own institutions for various purposes.

Others will work from some of the most important clinical research populations in the Parkinson's field, including the DATATOP (Deprenyl and Tocopherol Antioxidative Therapy of Parkinsonism) study population of 800 early-stage Parkinson's patients and the PRECEPT (Parkinson Research Examination of CEP-1347 Trial) population of 800 patients.

Nick Holford, MBChB, FRACP, of the University of Auckland will use a unique statistical approach to test the value of early measures of disease status in predicting the probable time to clinical events such as dementia, falls and depression.

Connie Marras, MD, PhD FRCP(C), of Toronto Western Hospital will focus on determining pr
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