Return to Main Menu

Gift to support research on Parkinson's disease The research of Keith Rodgers, Ph.D., an MUSC researcher investigating the epidemiology of Parkinson’s disease in South Carolina, will be supported by a $25,000 gift to the Murray Center for Research on Parkinson’s Disease and Related Disorders from Close to a Cure, a fund supporting Parkinson’s research.   Rodgers is building a database of the more than 8,000 anonymous patients  identified as having Parkinson’s disease throughout South Carolina, in hopes that the information pertaining to their location in the state may lead to an understanding of environmental and genetic factors that contribute to Parkinson’s.   Kenneth Bergmann, M.D., director of the Murray Center, believes that Rodgers’ research will play a major role in finding both the cause of and cure for the illness.   “The goal of the Murray Center is to discover the cause of Parkinson’s disease and to cure it,” Bergmann said. “To discover the cause, one has to understand a combination of environmental triggers and genetic background.”   The possibility of finding the cause of the disease excites both the Murray Center and Close to a Cure, because the discovery of a cause would most likely lead to a cure for the illness.   “The reason the gift from Close to a Cure is important is because one of the most difficult first steps in research is to fund good new ideas,” Bergmann said. “This program is the much needed initial step in finding a cause of, and ultimately a cure for, Parkinson’s.”     Friday, Oct. 14, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.