Okay ladies and gents, without further ado lets carry on with a quick look at   what

some of the speakers on the 29th June meeting at Leicester University imparted to us (go to part 1 for the details from Miguel Martins).

Flaviano Giorgini is the head of genetics at Leicester University and he had this to say about his own talk.

Professor Flaviano Giorgini provided an overview of his recently funded Parkinson’s UK project studying the protein RAB39B, which when defective causes an early onset form of Parkinson’s. He discussed findings in his lab utilising the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In these experiments the fly version of RAB39B (known as Rab39) is reduced using genetic approaches, and the “symptoms” in flies are studied. Notably, these flies exhibit features similar to those found in other fly models of Parkinson’s, including reduced lifespan, impaired locomotor activity and loss of dopaminergic neurons. Future work will explore the mechanisms underlying these “symptoms” in flies, and will extend into neuron-like cell models.

Short and sweet Flav’s report may be but look out for a new collaboration between researcher and Parkinson’s volunteer which will track developments and provide more information on the project on a more regular basis – more on that coming soon!

Next: Tilo Kunath was kind enough to not only give a very interesting presentation he also gave us his slides which are reproduced in the next part of this article. I have had a break from our tradition and reproduced (with Tilo’s permission of course!) some of his  list of slides as they were on the day. I know they may look very complex in places but the point of the researchers meeting is to educate other researchers so complex is good. If this is too complicated for you (and me!) we can take comfort in the thought that other scientists may learn from this.

LJP