Shared from parkinsonsnewstoday.com.
Some experimental therapies for Parkinson’s disease designed to improve the function of mitochondria may inadvertently damage them instead.
That’s according to the study, “Putative PINK1/Parkin activators lower the threshold for mitophagy by sensitizing cells to mitochondrial stress,” which was published in Science Advances. Researchers said the findings highlight the need for rigor when seeking new therapies.
“Billions of dollars are put into drug development, and that’s why it’s important to utilize our federal funding to understand the mechanisms behind how drugs work in order to improve medicines and make better ones,” William Rosencrans, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a study co-author who worked on the research during graduate training at Caltech, said in a Caltech news story. “It’s important to be conducting basic research investigations into how things work.”