Encouraging news from the Mayo Clinic (incidentally, one of our neuros is a PD specialist and he told us early on that he personally believed a cure would involve this protein):

"Mayo Clinic ( http://www.mayoclinic.org) researchers have developed a method to reduce the production of alpha-synuclein in the brain. Alpha-synuclein is a protein that is believed to be central to the cause of Parkinson's disease ( http://www.mayoclinic.org/parkinsons-disease/). All patients with Parkinson's disease have abnormal accumulations of alpha-synuclein protein in the brain.

Additional audio and video resources, including excerpts from an interview with Dr. Maraganore describing the research, are available on the Mayo Clinic News Blog ( http://mcnewsblog.wordpress.com/2008...insons-disease).
The new method involves the delivery of RNA interference compounds directly to selected areas of the brain via injection. The RNA interference compounds silence the gene that produces alpha-synuclein, according to the Mayo researchers. The study was published this month in Molecular Neurodegeneration....."

Here's the link for the full article:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...EB7AA2B4690%7D