Abstract

Parkinson’s disease has no cures and there is no known causal mechanism for the usual form. Indeed, the evidence is that idiopathic Parkinson’s is caused by a diversity of risk factors (e.g. advanced age, external toxins and head trauma) acting in an unknown manner.

The seminar tells how we address the Parkinson’s puzzle using mathematical models, simulation and dynamical systems analysis. Specifically, I will describe  (i) how energy deficits can be shown to form the common denominator linking diverse risk factors, (ii) how these deficits imply problems for the unique regulatory structure of brain energy systems and the massive energy budgets of vulnerable neurons and (iii) how damage caused by energy deficits becomes the etiological trigger that initiates the Parkinsonian pathology. Most importantly, I will describe a core feedback motif at the cellular heart of the Parkinson’s pathology, and how the state of this motif is regulated by risk factors mentioned earlier.

The systems biology of Parkinson’s, as embodied in the energy-etiology theory and the core feedback motif, provides an integrative framework for understanding an unknown disease that has no cures. In a research area where progress is glacial, a systems approach offers a structure with the potential to accelerate the development of preventative strategies, therapies, and (hopefully) cures.

Biography

Peter Wellstead was trained as an engineer by the Marconi Instruments Company, and worked for several companies and organisations before moving to Manchester, where he worked in the Control Systems Centre at UMIST for many years. In 2003 he moved to the Hamilton Institute before being appointed Science Foundation Ireland Research Professor of Systems Biology in 2004. Although now retired, his research work continues to be the use engineering and mathematical systems analysis to understand the etiopathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease.