On Tuesday 3 June 2025, Professor Richard Wade-Martins and Professor Michele Hu from the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (OPDC) hosted the Oxford Parkinson’s Research Day at the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Building, South Parks Road, Oxford.
Over 150 Oxford Parkinson’s researchers and collaborators were welcomed to a day of talks by scientists and clinicians showcasing the breadth and diversity of research in Parkinson’s across the University of Oxford.
Professor David Dexter, Director of Research, Parkinson’s UK, opened the day’s proceedings, followed by James Ferguson, Consultant Hepatologist, Honorary Professor University of Birmingham, who said a few words about his experience of living with Parkinson’s.
The programme was arranged across four sessions covering a wide range of translational work into Parkinson's: “Clinical Research into Parkinson’s”; “Cellular models and target discovery”; “Neuronal circuits underlying Parkinson’s”; and “Molecular mechanisms and related biomarkers”.
There were talks from three invited keynote speakers:-
Professor Günter Höglinger is the Director of the Department of Neurology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, and an expert in the design and conduct of clinical trials, in the evaluation of safety and efficacy of molecular interventions with disease-modifying intent. His scientific work is dedicated to the neurobiology of synucleinopathies and tauopathies. Professor Höglinger’s presentation was titled, “Towards a Biological Definition of Parkinson's disease’.
Professor David Rubinsztein, UK Dementia Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Professor Rubinsztein’s laboratory research is focused in the field of autophagy, particularly in the context of neurodegenerative diseases. His laboratory pioneered the strategy of autophagy upregulation as a possible therapeutic approach in various neurodegenerative diseases, and has identified drugs and novel pathways that may be exploited for this objective. He has made contributions that reveal the relevance of autophagy defects as a disease mechanism and to the basic cell biology of this important catabolic process. Professor Rubinsztein gave a presentation titled, “Autophagy and Alpha-synuclein”.
Professor Michael Johnson, Imperial College London: Professor Johnson’s research focuses on systems-level data integration to identify causal genes and predictive biomarkers which has resulted in drug target and therapeutic use patent applications and enduring pharma collaborations. In collaboration with Parkinson’s UK, he recently established a large multimillion public-private partnership for causal inference in Parkinson’s disease (The Landmark Project). His talk title was ‘Molecular causal inference and the Landmark Parkinson’s Project’.
In addition to the talks, there were 38 poster presentations on display throughout the day.
The event closed with Professor Wade-Martins presenting the best poster and runner up awards voted for by all attendees. The prize awarded for the best poster was won by DPhil student Hung-Ju Chueh, from the Tofaris Group, University of Oxford, for his poster titled, ‘Investigating Neuron–Microglia Interactions using a Human iPSC-based model for Parkinson’s Disease.
The runner up prize winner was Oliver Curry from the Wade-Martins Group. Oliver also gave a talk titled, ‘3D Droplet Printing of a Human Cortico-striatal-dopamine Microcircuit to Model Parkinson’s Disease’ as well as presenting his poster of the same title.
Professor Wade-Martins, Head of the OPDC, said “It was a great day of scientific talks giving researchers the opportunity to network and meet with colleagues. We had the pleasure of hosting both clinical and scientific speakers representing work across different many departments from Oxford plus keynote talks from internationally renowned experts. This resulted in an exciting day and truly exemplified the collaborative, multidisciplinary and translational nature of our work.”
Professor Richard Wade-Martins, Head of the OPDC, presenting the winner’s certificate for Best Poster to Hung-Ju Chueh from the Tofaris Group, University of Oxford.
Professor Richard Wade-Martins, Head of the OPDC, presenting the runner-up’s certificate for Best Poster to Oliver Curry from the Wade-Martins Group, University of Oxford.