Dr Edwin Jabbari, an Academic Neurologist specialising in Movement Disorders in the Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, has received an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship worth £2.3 million to further research into Parkinson’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy.
This fellowship will allow Dr Jabbari to set up his own research group at the Queen Square Institute of Neurology whilst also being appointed as an honorary Consultant Neurologist in the movement disorders department at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.
The five-year research project, which the fellowship will fund, will focus on the development and application of seed amplification tests to detect alpha-synuclein and 4-repeat tau pathology in biosamples from patients with parkinsonian disorders including Parkinson's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
This novel approach, combined with detailed clinical evaluations, may help to improve the accuracy of early diagnosis and understand how the presence of co-pathologies affect the progression of Parkinson’s disease and PSP.
Dr Jabbari said: “It is a huge honour to be awarded an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship. This provides the platform to start my own research group at the Institute of Neurology and build on the momentum that we have generated over the last 10 years in the use of novel fluid biomarkers and genetics to enhance the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of Parkinsonian disorders.
“It is also an immense privilege to be appointed as an honorary Consultant Neurologist in the movement disorders department at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery which will enable me to continue working closely with Parkinson's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy patients.”