NEW YORK – Centogene and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) said on Tuesday that they are collaborating on a study of genetic risk factors associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD), specifically the role of variants in the GBA (glucosylceramidase beta) gene.
Financial details of the project were not disclosed.
The research project will leverage multiomic data in Centogene’s databank, which contains more than 800,000 patients from over 120 countries, including over 15,000 Parkinson’s disease datasets from the company’s Rostock International Parkinson's Disease (ROPAD) study. According to the firm, the project, conducted in collaboration with the University of Lübeck in Germany, is the world’s largest observational study on PD genetics.
The new study with the MJFF aims to establish a deeper understanding of the relationship between specific GBA gene variants and PD, Centogene said.
"By providing a more complete understanding of the way that the GBA gene interacts with multiple biological pathways, we can elucidate targets that can be used to develop more precise disease-modifying therapeutics for Parkinson’s patients in the future," Peter Bauer, chief medical and genomic officer at Centogene, said in a statement.