Thanks a million Z-flower and Paula for highlighting M J Fox supported Pharam companies research ..
My brain is sloooow so I decided to put Paula and Z-flower posts together and we have 4 or 5 lines of hope (Are lines 1 and 4 actually the same ????) :
1) COGANE / GDNF: PHYTOPHARM, the quoted Cambridgeshire drug developer that makes products from medicinal plants, is to receive a $1.2m (£613,000) grant from the Michael J Fox Foundation to help to fund its research into treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

It will get money over two years to fund preclinical trials of Cogane, a treatment that helps to stimulate production in the brain of the protein GDNF, which is known to ease symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Injecting GDNF into the part of the brain involved can be effective but is exceptionally risky. GDNF cannot be taken orally.

Cogane is being developed to bypass these hurdles and this funding will be used to research the most effective dosing of the drug.
2) Christine Bulawa, PhD, of FoldRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., will work to develop a disease-modifying drug that could block the toxicity associated with clumping of the protein alpha-synuclein, a hallmark of PD pathology. Dr. BulawaĦ's team has identified chemical compounds that protect neurons from alpha-synuclein toxicity and will now work with the compounds in a rodent model of Parkinson's. The researchers hope to identify promising small molecules that, with further optimization, can be developed into drug candidates to be tested in PD patients in clinical trials.
3) Chronic inflammation plays a role in the death of the dopamine-producing neurons that are lost in Parkinson's disease. Patrick Flood, PhD, of TheraLogics, Inc., and his group will test compounds that specifically target the inflammatory pathway in a PD animal model to determine whether certain drugs can protect against this neuronal loss. The team will assess whether blocking inflammation reverses destruction of dopamine-producing neurons, and actually leads to regeneration of these cells within the brain, to determine the most effective dose and timing for therapeutic intervention.
4) The blood-brain barrier is a thin layer of tightly packed cells separating the central nervous system from the body's bloodstream. This layer is crucial to protecting the brain from foreign substances, but also poses a major challenge in delivering potentially therapeutic treatments via orally administered drugs. Antonia Orsi, PhD, and her team from Phytopharm have developed a small orally active molecule that crosses the blood-brain barrier. In vivo and in vitro, the molecule increases levels of trophic factors, specialized proteins that potently promote survival of neurons. The team has already demonstrated that the compound can increase the number of dopaminergic neurons in a mouse model of PD. The goal now is to gain greater understanding of the neurorestorative properties of this compound in mice and, if successful, test the compound in a primate model of Parkinson's disease.
5) Mitochondria are the "energy factories" of body cells. It is believed that mitochondrial function is decreased in people with Parkinson's disease and that mitochondrial toxins induce parkinsonian symptoms in animal models. Rebecca Pruss, PhD, and her colleagues at Trophos are developing unique compounds that improve mitochondrial function and that are currently being evaluated in patients for the treatment of ALS and diabetic neuropathy. Dr. Pruss will test whether these compounds are neuroprotective in an animal model of Parkinson's disease.