Research into effect of probiotic brings together fundamental and clinical Parkinson's research

Dr Maria Doitsidou (Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences) and Dr David Breen (Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences) have been awarded a £750,000 grant from the Reta Lila Weston Trust to ‘Investigate the disease-modifying potential of the probiotic Bacillus subtilis in Parkinson's disease’.

Maria and David will be leading the project, bringing together teams from Edinburgh, the Stavanger University Hospital, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Dundee. The funding will allow Maria to build on her team’s previous findings on the effects of B. subtilis in C. elegans [link to more info] and extend the work to mouse models of PD. 

The funded project will include a twin-site phase II randomised control trial (in Edinburgh and Stavanger, Norway) led by David Breen, and has received support from the Parkinson’s UK Edinburgh interest group [link to more info].