[Stitcher]

Small-scale research taking aim at disease

BY CAROLYNE PARK

Posted on Sunday, April 26, 2009
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/258124/

University of Arkansas at Little Rock researchers are examining Parkinson's disease at its most fundamental level in hopes of finding a way to stop the progression of the debilitating disease.

Chemistry professor Jerry Darsey and doctoral student Sushma Thotakura are leading the one-year study that's being paid for with the help of a grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

Darsey, who's been at UALR since 1990, said the research is focused on addressing the disease in its earliest stages.

"Most of the treatments for Parkinson's right now are looking at the symptoms, not the cause," Darsey said. "We're attacking it from a molecular point of view."