Michael J. Fox Foundation's Rapid Response Innovation Awards Hit Mid-2009 With More Than $1 Million Funded in High-risk/High-reward Approaches to Parkinson's Disease

Highlights of the 2009 program include:

--Curt R. Freed, MD, of the University of Colorado has discovered that phenylbutyrate, a drug already approved by the U.S. FDA to treat kidney disease, prevents brain deterioration in pre-clinical models of Parkinson’s. The drug may turn on a protective gene called DJ-1 in the brain. Dr. Freed is studying 12 people with recently diagnosed PD to determine if the drug can increase DJ-1 levels and set the stage for determining whether phenylbutyrate may slow disease progression.