Parkinson’s disease afflicts more than ten million people worldwide, and with prevalence continuing to rise, the need for therapies that do more than merely mask symptoms has become urgent. In response, UC Berkeley’s Molecular Therapeutics Initiative (MTI) has selected three research teams for the inaugural MTI Parkinson’s Therapeutics Program, launched last autumn to transform high-impact academic discoveries into therapeutic leads. These awards were made possible through a generous philanthropic gift that enables MTI to pursue bold, high-risk strategies with the potential for transformative clinical impact.
The 2026 awardees are Ross Wilson and Hanqin Li of the Innovative Genomics Institute, Markita Landry and Stephan Lammel from the College of Chemistry and Department of Neuroscience, and Eunyong Park with graduate researcher Laurie Wang in Molecular & Cell Biology. Each team receives $90,000 in seed funding and priority access to MTI’s drug discovery capabilities, and medicinal-chemistry platforms, resources that allow projects to advance through pre-clinical milestones fast. The proposal review panel featured leading Parkinson’s experts, including Nobel laureate Randy Schekman, scientific chair of the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative, and Dr. Patrik Brundin, Therapeutic Area Leader for Movement Disorders at Roche and an executive scientific advisor of the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
MTI accelerates high-risk, cutting-edge academic research toward viable therapeutic applications for Parkinson’s disease. Wilson and Li will refine a genome-editing strategy that gently lowers production of α-synuclein, the protein whose misfolded aggregates seed Lewy bodies, aiming to intervene before toxic clumps form. Landry and Lammel will combine regenerative transcription factors with near-infrared nanosensors to rebuild dopamine circuitry and measure neurotransmission in real time, shifting the paradigm beyond dopamine replacement toward circuit restoration. Park and Wang will search for small molecules that enhance protein-mediated mitophagy, opening a pharmacological route to preserve mitochondrial quality control, a central safeguard against neurodegeneration.
By converging on protein toxicity, circuitry failure, and mitochondrial dysfunction, the three projects are aimed at slowing or halting Parkinson’s progression rather than masking tremor and rigidity. MTI’s integrated translational ecosystem provides the infrastructure these ideas need to mature quickly, bridging discovery science with drug development, and positioning UC Berkeley researchers to make a meaningful impact on a disorder whose burden is growing faster than any other major neurological disease.
We are congratulating our inaugural cohort of innovators tackling Parkinson’s Disease – we are excited to see these projects develop.
Roberto Zoncu
Faculty Co-Director, MTI
