Zhang Receives Grant from Fox Foundation
UW Medicine Pathology Associate Professor Jing Zhang was recently selected as one of five scientists receiving a grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation to study biomarkers in Parkinson's disease. The five projects will receive a total of $2 million in support.
Biomarkers are biological compounds that could provide a sort of fingerprint for a disease, allowing patients to be diagnosed earlier and more definitively, and physicians to monitor the progression of the disease.
Dr. Zhang will receive about $400,000 from the Fox Foundation for his project, which will attempt to identify various biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid and blood plasma. Zhang's work will focus on variants of a Parkinson's-related protein called alpha-synuclein. His previous research has found several variants of alpha- synuclein in the cerebrospinal fluid and plasma of Parkinson's patients.
Dr. Zhang has received more than $1 million in support from the Fox Foundation for the study of biomarkers.