Jnetics Supporting Research into Familial Parkinson’s Disease

by Gidon Schwartz, Education & Outreach Executive

Jnetics has its origins as an educational charity aiming to inform the community about genetics, how it impacts us, and what precautions can be taken to guard against Jewish genetic disorders. Through our recessive testing, we have screened thousands of individuals and identifies carrier couples, helping them to go on to have healthy families.

More recently, we have partnered with NHS England and Chai Cancer Care to bring the ground-breaking NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme to the Jewish community, whilst educating about BRCA testing, its availability and implications.

However, there are many more traits and genetic variants that are more common within the Jewish population that we are currently unable to screen for due to their nature, or a lack of knowledge around the underlying genetics that cause them. One such example of this is Familial Parkinson’s Disease.

This is a form of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) which is inherited through your genes and accounts for 15% of Jewish people that suffer with PD. The most common genetic cause of PD is a mutation in the LRRK2 gene, which is found in around 15% of PD cases in Ashkenazi Jews.

To further investigate this link and aid the development of new diagnostic techniques and treatments, Jnetics are proud to be partnering with scientists in an exciting piece of research.

Dr Mie Rizig and Dr John Hall, based at Queen Square, University College London, are keen to gather a group of Ashkenazi Jewish people who either have PD themselves, or who are a first degree relative – either a sibling, parent or child of a person with the disease.

Initially, Dr Rizig and Dr Hall would like to invite patients and their relatives to add their names to a list, after which they will be contacted directly. Taking part in the study is voluntary and would involve attending an interview at Queen Square Hospital for Neurological Disease, and then having a blood test and providing a urine sample. Further tests may be undertaken in the future if necessary. You can also choose whether you wish to be informed of any results or not.

For more information, please contact Dr John Hall on 0330 113 1517 (standard landline rate) or john.d.hall@ucl.ac.uk