By Luis Fabregas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Bernard Madoff scandal has hit a high-profile Parkinson's disease research project at the University of Pittsburgh.
The Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases operated for five years with a $750,000 annual grant from the Picower Foundation, which shut down last week because of the $50 billion fraud scheme that wiped out investors around the world.
The foundation notified Pitt officials it will not be able to fulfill the remainder of its pledge, which was expected to last another year-and-a-half. Without the money, the institute's mission to find a cure for Parkison's could be threatened, its director said Tuesday.
"No one would have guessed that a scandal in New York would suddenly affect research in Pittsburgh," said Dr. Tim Greenamyre, a professor of neurology at Pitt's School of Medicine and the institute's director since 2005. "All of a sudden, it comes to affect all of the research that we conduct on Parkinson's."
The institute, located in Biomedical Science Tower 3 in Oakland, was looking into causes of Parkinson's, a brain disorder characterized by tremors, slowness of movement and stiffness. About a dozen workers at the laboratory are studying aspects of the disorder, including environmental causes, the viability of gene therapy treatments and ways to stem its development.
The Picower Foundation grant was the main source of funding for the institute because federal grants from the National Institutes of Health diminished in recent years, Greenamyre said.
"We're scrambling for any potential source we can get," he said. "Our hope is that we can generate some philanthropic giving this season."
David Von Hofen of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Parkinson Foundation said more research like Pitt's is needed at a time when there is no known way to slow the progression of the disorder. About 1.5 million Americans have the disease.
"There have been new medications to help reduce symptoms, but right now there is no clinically proven medication that slows its progress," said Von Hofen, the chapter's director of programs and outreach. "Even though it is manageable to a great extent for a number of years, there isn't anything yet that will even slow it down."
Greenamyre said his laboratory has attracted talented scientists from around the world. The Picower Foundation provided funding to five other laboratories that conducted Parkison's research.
"It's getting difficult to get biomedical research funding these days," he said. "This could have a potentially devastating impact."
Madoff, a former Nasdaq stock market chairman, is accused of running a Ponzi scheme that paid returns to certain investors out of the principal received from others.
The scam included a global roster of investors, from retirees on Long Island to the International Olympic Committee, to charities worldwide. So far, investors said they lost more than $30 billion, according to an Associated Press calculation.
Luis Fabregas can be reached at lfabregas@tribweb.com or 412-320-7998.
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