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Metabolon Signs New Partnership with UK’s Tracking Parkinson’s Study

Collaboration will help identify new metabolomic biomarkers and track biological changes to better understand Parkinson’s disease pathogenesis.

MORRISVILLE, N.C. – November 15, 2022 – Metabolon, Inc., the global leader in providing metabolomics solutions that advance a wide variety of research, diagnostic, therapeutic development, and precision medicine applications, today announced a new collaboration with Tracking Parkinson’s, or the PRoBaND study, a UK-based longitudinal study of Parkinson’s disease funded entirely by Parkinson’s UK, to identify new metabolomic biomarkers and track biological changes over time to better understand Parkinson’s disease pathogenesis.

There is a wide variation of symptoms and features of Parkinson’s disease driven by both genetic and external factors. Based at the Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, Tracking Parkinson’s is the world’s largest long-term observational and multi-center study that aims to define these variations by analyzing the clinical expression of Parkinson’s in relation to genotypic variation. Since 2012, Tracking Parkinson’s has collected clinical data and biosamples from more than 2,500 participants, recruited into three categories including recent onset, early onset, and participant siblings. The study tracks participants for seven years and is one of the most clinically phenotyped cohorts globally.

This collaboration will allow Metabolon and Tracking Parkinson’s to map metabolic changes in serum to clinical changes and genetic variants related to Parkinson’s disease, allowing for the identification of novel biomarkers of disease progression. In addition, self-reported data such as sleep patterns and smell loss will provide the opportunity for Metabolon and Tracking Parkinson’s to link metabolic changes to patient symptoms and overall quality of life.

Professor Donald Grosset, chief investigator of Tracking Parkinson’s said: “Tracking Parkinson’s is world-leading in its scope and scale and one of our key ambitions, when the study was designed over a decade ago, was to share an expansive dataset and biosample repository with scientists all over the world to better understand the disease and its origins, and to develop better, targeted treatments. It is extremely rewarding after so many years of data collection to realize that ambition through collaborations with teams like Metabolon. The Tracking team is very grateful to all of our participants and their families, to our research nurses around the UK, and to our funder Parkinson’s UK for working with us all these years. We are very much looking forward to sharing the results from this exciting partnership.”

“We are extremely enthusiastic about partnering with Tracking Parkinson’s to further the understanding of the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease, said Karl Bradshaw, Vice President of Corporate Development at Metabolon. “Exploring small molecules drives our understanding of the biochemistry that leads to the definitive representation of the phenotype when tracking neurological diseases like Parkinson’s. Metabolomics is also an essential element of the multi-omics approach to help transform healthcare and improve patient care by understanding disease progression.”

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