Aligning Science Across Parkinson (ASAP) announces Global Parkinson’s Genetics Program (GP2)

The five year program will leverage existing consortia and cohorts to genotype more than 150,000 volunteers around the world — people with Parkinson’s disease or risk factors and control volunteers — to further understand the genetic architecture of this disease. Importantly, this program will integrate ancestrally diverse populations from around the world, addressing a large gap in our knowledge of PD. The underlying data, analytical processes, and results from GP2 will be made available to the research community as quickly as possible, with minimum barriers to access and use.

This program is the first resource project from ASAP, which has developed an ambitious roadmap to tackle key scientific challenges in Parkinson’s disease by supporting meaningful, multidisciplinary collaboration; generating research-enabling resources; and democratizing data. GP2 serves each ASAP goal and will be a valuable resource for the entire neurodegeneration community.

GP2 is a five-year study led by Andrew Singleton, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health and a steering committee which includes: Professor Huw Morris (Professor of Clinical Neurosciences, Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), Professor John Hardy ( Chair of Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) and Professor Nicholas Wood (Professor of Clinical Neurogenetics, Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology)

"This initiative will analyse the genome in huge numbers of PD patients from around the globe. It seeks to not only improve our genetic knowledge of this common incurable disease, but also redress the current imbalance of genetic discoveries being focussed on principally Caucasian populations. This has the potential of equalising the gains of genetic discoveries in PD to the benefit or everyone."  Professor Nick Wood, Professor of Clinical Neurogenetics, Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Further information

• Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP)
• Professor Nicholas Wood's academic profile
• Professor John Hardy's academic profile
• Professor Huw Morris' academic profile

Source: Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP)

Full steering committee: