A National Institutes of Health researcher, Dr. Richard J. Youle has received the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences award, after discovering a way to remove damaged mitochondria to help protect against Parkinson’s Disease. Richard J. Youle leads a team of neurologists with the aim of studying how genetic mutations can be one of the causes of Parkinson’s Disease. While researching they found that some disease-causing mutations called PINK1 and Parkin could harm the brain. These mutations could lead to the mitochondria in brain cells to break down.
Currently, over 500,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. These results could aid scientists in figuring out how genes play a role in preventing this disease in healthy people, or create cures for those already affected, along with other diseases related to mitochondrial damage.
Dr. Youle has since received a $3 million prize for further research in “elucidating a quality control pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against parkinson’s disease.”
Comments