School Notes: School of Medicine
May/June 2024

Grant will fund Parkinson’s clinical trial

Yale School of Medicine has been awarded a $13.2 million grant from the Marcus Foundation to support a clinical trial that could mark a first step toward a preventive treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD). The Marcus Foundation, chaired by Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former chairman and CEO of the Home Depot, provides targeted and impactful philanthropy in the areas of medical research, free enterprise, and veterans support, Jewish causes, and the community. 

Led by David Hafler, chair of the Department of Neurology and William S. and Lois Stiles Edgerly Professor of Neurology and professor of immunobiology, along with Jesse Cedarbaum, instructor in neurology, the clinical trial will test the hypothesis that inflammatory signaling plays a key role in the development of PD, by blocking these signals using adalimumab (Humira), an FDA-approved anti-inflammatory medication used to treat autoimmune disorders.

With ‘innovator award,’ professor will explore possible cause of lupus

Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and professor of dermatology and of molecular, cellular & developmental biology at Yale School of Medicine, has received a grant from the Lupus Research Alliance (LRA) that will allow her to investigate the possible cause of lupus, a chronic, complex autoimmune disease that affects millions of people worldwide. The LRA’s 2023 Dr. William E. Paul Distinguished Innovator Award (DIA) provides up to $1 million over four years for projects that explore “bold, paradigm-shifting ideas that could lead to groundbreaking discoveries in lupus research.”

The award will enable Iwasaki and her team to study whether the immune system’s reaction to viruses can trigger lupus. By establishing a connection among endogenous retroviruses, inflammation, and autoreactive T-cells in lupus, this research has the potential to lead the way to new, targeted therapies for this condition.