Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD) are common chronic diseases of ageing.  These diseases are increasingly common and lead to substantial morbidity and mortality. It has been estimated that there are between 600 and 1000 PD patients in Luxembourg, but the disease can be difficult to diagnose and the true number could be much higher.

The IBBL is partnering with the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg and the Centre Hospitalier du Luxembourg (CHL) who have identified PD as one of their major priorities and are creating PD research team under the PMC umbrella. The combination of a strong clinical program and an innovative systems biologic approach to characterizing and understanding PD has the potential to make new discoveries in PD and to attract various partners in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries to work with the Luxembourg group to test new therapies for PD and perhaps also AD.  The LCSB has a strong collaboration with the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle to apply the strategy of systems biology research to the problems of PD.