Six Parkinson's Disease Experts Join UC

The UC Academic Health Center has accelerated Cincinnati’s effort to combat Parkinson’s disease by recruiting six experts in the field.

The six, four of them internationally known scientists who have joined UC as a group from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, will work with existing Parkinson’s teams at the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cincinnati and University Hospital.

“From this time forward, no one from the Tristate area who suffers from Parkinson’s disease need go anyplace else for treatment,” said Joseph Broderick, MD, chair of UC’s Department of Neurology.  

“These new recruits, working together in the lab and at the bedside, will make UC one of only a few places in the country with clinicians, surgeons and scientists who are collaborating closely to find new treatments for Parkinson’s disease,” Dr. Broderick said.

A neurological disease that progressively robs its victims of motor skills, such as the ability to control movement and speech, Parkinson’s affects 1.5 million people nationwide, striking most when they are in their late 50s.

The disease gained international attention when it claimed the life of Pope John Paul. Actor Michael J. Fox also suffers from the disease, and his Michael J. Fox Foundation provides thousands of dollars to researchers to fight it.

UC’s six new recruits are:

• Researchers Timothy Collier, PhD, Kathy Steece-Collier, PhD, Caryl Sortwell, PhD, and Jack Lipton, PhD, all from Rush University. Drs. Collier, Steece-Collier and Sortwell have joined UC’s Department of Neurology and Dr. Lipton, the Department of Psychiatry.
  
• Physicians Alberto Espay, MD, from Toronto, Canada, and Andrew Duker, MD, who recently completed his residency at UC and is UC’s first Davis Phinney/Donald Krumme Fellow in Movement Disorders

They will be working closely with UC neurologist Fredy Revilla, MD, head of the Division of Movement Disorders; neurosurgeon George Mandybur, MD; and Kim Seroogy, PhD, director of the Selma Schottenstein Harris Laboratory for Research in Parkinson's. Last year, Dr. Seroogy received a four-year, $250,000 Michael J. Fox Foundation grant to continue his research. Dr. Sortwell and Dr. Steece-Collier also each hold a $250,000 grant from the Fox foundation.

“Recruitment of these scientists and physicians reinforces a recent pattern of multidisciplinary, cross-department recruiting at UC,” said Dr. Broderick.

“The Neuroscience Institute at UC and University Hospital now has the mass of experts needed to comprehensively approach Parkinson’s disease from both a research and a clinical perspective.

“The bottom line is that we are focused on finding different ways to prevent and slow down the progression of the disease, going beyond just giving medications to treat the symptoms. The more that basic scientists and clinicians work together, the more apt we are to discover new treatments.”

Funding for recruiting the Chicago researchers and for the Davis Phinney/Donald Krumme Fellowship came in part from a $100,000 grant from the Davis Phinney Foundation. The gift was supported by proceeds from the inaugural Sunflower Revolution, a gala and bike ride held in Cincinnati last July.

This year’s Sunflower Revolution II, scheduled for August 19–21, will include a gala and auction Friday, Aug. 19, an educational symposium and expo for Parkinson’s patients, caregivers and physicians, on Saturday, Aug. 20, both at the Hyatt Regency downtown, and 25- and 62-mile bike rides in Loveland on Sunday, Aug. 21.

For gala tickets, contact Kathy Krumme at

kkrumme@davisphinneyfoundation.com

or call Cindy Starr at 584-0879. For more information about the educational symposium and expo, contact Brooke Cribbs at 569-5251 or

bcribbs@mayfieldclinic.com

. To register for the bike ride, visit

www.tucsonracing.com

.

The Sunflower Revolution was named by Kathy Krumme, a Cincinnati cyclist and bicycle shop manager whose father, Donald Krumme, suffers from Parkinson’s. The sunflower is not only a familiar sight at the Tour de France, the world’s most famous cycling event, it is also seen as a symbol of hope.