APDA proudly invests in the most promising clinicians and scientific projects focused on the discovery of the cause(s) and finding the cure(s) for Parkinson’s disease (PD). APDA is committed to scientific research and has been a funding partner in many major scientific breakthroughs related to Parkinson’s disease, investing more than $62 million in research since 1961. We are very proud of the major impact our research funds have made in the past, and we’re excited to give you some updates on the impact we’re having today and also explain how we measure that impact.
Tracking the Impact of APDA-Funded Research
There are various methods APDA uses to understand the impact of our grant money:
- The number of papers published in medical literature that acknowledge APDA funding.
- The quality of the journals in which the APDA-funded papers are published. Not all medical journals are considered on par with each other. Some are more selective in the research papers that they accept than others. The research community has created a metric called the Impact Factor, to measure how impactful a journal’s research is. The higher the number, the more impactful the journal. A journal’s Impact Factor is the average number of times articles published in the journal in the past two years have been cited in other journals. It is calculated by dividing the total number of citations in a two-year period by the total number of articles published in those two years. In general, an Impact Factor of 10 or higher is considered remarkable, while above 3 is considered very good.
- The number of times the individual APDA-funded papers were cited in other papers. APDA can track how often a research paper is cited in subsequent research, a measure of how important the work has been to other research projects. As time goes on, the number of citations typically increases. Since 2020, APDA-funded work has collectively been cited close to 7,000 times!
Academic Journals and ADPA-Funded Research
In 2024, 46 APDA-funded research articles were published in academic journals, investigating various aspects of PD. Even though these papers have only been published within the past year, they have already been cited in 152 other research articles.
It is important to note that research may take more than one year to reach its conclusion. Therefore, some papers published in 2024 were funded by APDA one or more years ago.
Here is a summary of the citation record for the APDA papers from the past five years:
| Year | Number of citations | Number of papers | Average of Impact factor |
| 2020 | 3698 | 50 | 8.38 |
| 2021 | 1898 | 60 | 7.80 |
| 2022 | 516 | 28 | 9.07 |
| 2023 | 419 | 39 | 10.57 |
| 2024 | 152 | 46 | 7.74 |
APDA-Funded Research Papers
Below we highlight several research papers published in 2024 that APDA has proudly funded. You can click through to the actual published paper for more details about the research projects.
Measuring gait using a smartphone
Ryan Roemmich, PhD, whose research was featured on a broadcast of Dr. Gilbert Hosts, received a research grant from APDA in 2022. He recently published his results of a video-based approach called pose estimation to objectively track gait and other movements in people with PD. Pose estimation uses a computer algorithm to detect the position of various body parts using video only. Whereas currently, rigorously analyzing a person’s gait typically involves access to a sophisticated laboratory setup, Dr. Roemmich’s approach uses a smart phone only, thereby vastly broadening access to gait analysis. Gait analysis is critical in monitoring progression of disease and measuring success of physical rehabilitation.
Reducing oxidative stress in the brain
Scott Waldman, MD, PhD, was awarded an APDA research grant in 2022 to study the role of GUCY2C in PD, a receptor that helps drive energy production in various cells. GUCY2C is found on cells in the intestine, where it regulates water secretion, but it is also found on dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain. Dr. Waldman published his work demonstrating that GUCY2C reduces oxidative stress in the mouse brain and protects dopamine neurons from degenerating. In his experiments, Dr. Waldman made use of the FDA-approved drug linaclotide, which is known to activate GUCY2C. If activation of GUCY2C is confirmed to be important in protecting dopaminergic neurons, it is possible that linaclotide could be repurposed for use as a treatment in PD.
Discovering new potential drugs for PD
Sunil Kumar, PhD, was the recipient of APDA research grants in 2021 and 2022 to develop a technique that identifies molecules that block alpha-synuclein aggregation. Using his technique, he isolated two molecules and recently published his results demonstrating that they were effective in blocking aggregation of alpha-synuclein in a cell model and a C elegans (roundworm) model of PD. More work is now planned to test these compounds in other animal models of PD to determine whether they could eventually be tested in humans.
Understanding the role of alpha-synuclein in the neuron
Although abnormal alpha-synuclein aggregation is thought to play a key role in the development of PD, researchers don’t fully understand the normal functionality of alpha-synuclein. Gary Ho, MD, PhD, one of our current Dr. George C. Cotzias Memorial Fellowship awardees, is studying the role of alpha-synuclein in the creation and transport of synaptic vesicles within the human neuron. These are small sacs within the neuron that store and release neurotransmitters into the synapse, the space between neurons, thereby allowing for communication between neurons. Using a new assay that he developed, Dr. Ho recently published that overexpression of alpha-synuclein inhibits the production of vesicles, thereby interfering with this communication system. Restoring normal structure and function of synaptic vesicles could therefore be a new treatment strategy for PD.
Comparing PD populations: real-world vs research data
APDA funds nine Centers for Advanced Research at major medical centers around the country. These APDA Centers support large research programs, which include research trainees, fellowship programs, early-stage discovery programs, and later-stage clinical translation. Our newest Center at Yale University recently published a fascinating study comparing populations of people with PD who are in longitudinal observational studies, whose clinical data is captured in research databases, with real-world people with PD whose clinical data is captured in their medical records. Real-world populations progressed more rapidly, had more cognitive decline, were diagnosed more than 11 years later, and started PD treatment an average of 2.3 years later. This study highlights the limitations of extrapolating findings from research cohorts to the general population, which may be more medically and socio-economically complex.
We are proud of the innovative research these APDA grantees are exploring, and we hope these explanations and published papers help you better understand the importance of PD research and the progress being made. At APDA, we continue to be very mindful of the impact of our funding and make every effort to maximize the effect of our research dollars to advance our understanding of PD.
How APDA Research Funding Works
Every year, our esteemed Scientific Advisory Board meets in the spring to carefully select the scientists who will receive APDA research funding. It’s a very specific and thorough process. You can read about how a scientist develops a project to apply for funding.
APDA’s Newly Funded 2024-2025 Research Awardees
Our current group of grantees is working on exciting projects, which you can read about on our website. Our grantees are required to send us six-month and 12-month progress reports to keep us up to date on how their projects are progressing. This is an important part of the process and helps us evaluate and measure our impact.
Tips & Takeaways
- APDA proudly invests in research that advances our understanding of PD.
- In addition to the research reports submitted by our grantees, we track the impact of our investment by monitoring the publication of the results of the studies that we fund, the quality of the journals in which the results are published, and the number of times the results have been cited in other research.
- APDA can continue to fund important PD research because of the generous donations we receive from dedicated people like you. If you would like to support critical work like this, please consider making a donation of any size today. Thank you.
- To learn more about APDA’s research funding, please visit the What We Fund section of our website.