If you were a kid in 1989 those shoes, and that car, were really frreakin' cool. Just trust me.

Would you pay $4000 for a pair of sneakers? What if they glowed and came from the distant year 2015? …What if they could help rid the world of a dreaded disease? Michael J Fox is teaming up with Nike to produce the MAG, shoes inspired by the 1989 classic film Back to the Future 2. The Nike MAG is a (mostly) faithful copy of shoes Fox wore as Marty McFly when visiting the then far distant year of 2015 via a time traveling Delorean. (Look, kids, it was the 80s. Things like this made sense then). 1500 pairs of the Nike MAG are being auctioned on eBay now through September 18th, with benefits going towards research in Parkinson’s, a disease that Fox has been battling for two decades. Watch the fun commercial for the Nike MAG in the video below featuring Back to the Future 2 co-star Christopher Lloyd, followed by a heartfelt appeal for donations by Fox. With 600 shoes already sold at prices near $4k, the Nike MAG looks to raise about $6 million on its own. But wait, there’s more! Google’s Sergey Brin and his wife, Anne Wojcicki of genetic testing firm 23andMe, will match donations to the Michael J Fox Foundation up to $50 million! The future may not be what we imagined in 1989, but with your help it could get a whole lot better.

Firmly entrenched in the campy spirit of the Back to the Future series, the Nike MAG ad features the comedy of Christopher Lloyd, Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader and Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder:

If you’re disappointed that the Nike MAG won’t have automated laces like the shoes seen in Back to the Future 2, try to remember that this is all for charity. Here’s Fox asking for your support, followed by a recent appearance with David Letterman where he discusses the project:

We all know that Back To the Future 2 got many things wrong about the year 2015 (and a few things right) but this really isn’t about futurism. The Nike MAG is a silly shoe for a great cause – one that is personal for many of those involved. Fox has Parkinson’s and Sergey Brin has a genetic predisposition towards the disease. Generally, however, this effort could effect millions. After all, Parkinson’s is the most prevalent neurodegenerative illness after Alzheimer’s. The Michael J Fox Foundation has done great work to fund research into causes and treatments. As we’ve discussed before, genetic testing service 23andMe has an ongoing crowd-sourced effort (partnered with the Fox Foundation) to find genetic markers linked to the condition. Results have been good so far. The Nike MAG is simply the latest way that Wojcicki, Brin, and Fox have found to battle a disease that hurts so many.

Maybe you can’t afford $4k for a pair of novelty sneakers. You could still join 23andMe’s efforts by getting yourself genetically tested and donating the results (starts around $100). Or you can go to the Michael J Fox Foundation and participate in the Brin-Wojcicki Challenge. Dollar for dollar matching means everything you donate gets doubled.

Recent advances in genetic therapies have shown promise in treating Parkinson’s. We can accomplish even more if we can learn more. Research is the key. Anything you can do will help.

[image and video credits: NikeMAG]
[source: Nike, Michael J Fox Foundation]

An implant in the chest sends electrical stimulation to the brain via long wires. 80,000 people already have these devices.

Those fighting conditions like dystonia, Parkinson’s Disease, and chronic pain have a way of alleviating their symptoms – direct electric shocks to their brain. Since 1997, deep brain stimulation (DBS) implants have slowly been gaining US FDA approval for use in patients (2002 for Parkinson’s, 2003 for dystonia). These ‘brain-pacers’ are surgically implanted in the chest but have long lead wires that reach up through the neck and deep into the brain. Electric stimulation from the implant can dramatically lessen the tremors associated with movement disorders, and experiments suggest they may help with OCD, depression, and severe cases of Tourette’s. According to Medtronic, the largest manufacturer of these deep brain stimulation devices, over 80,000 people around the world have a DBS implant. Eighty thousand! Did the age of mental cybernetics arrive while I wasn’t looking?

We’ve seen a few newsworthy brain implants in the last few years, including one designed to treat epilepsy and others that allow motor neurons to control computer cursors. But all of these devices were in the experimental phase of development. Medtronic’s DBS implants have been FDA approved for more than a decade (for some conditions) and such devices have been used tens of thousands of times. That’s beyond ‘experimental’, we’re reaching ‘well-tested’. If the number of patients treated with these devices continues to climb as it has in the past few years (we were at only 35,000 or so back in 2007) brain implants are going to become much more common in the next few years.

Surgery for insertion of an electrode to treat Parkinson's. Not something you'd do casually.

Keep in mind that these first generation devices are still rather crude. The best Medtronic has to offer has just eight electrodes (4 per lead), and scientists can only roughly target the desired areas needed to alleviate symptoms for disorders like Parkinson’s. In many ways DBS implants are basically just pace-makers with wires leading into your head.

Still, they’ve shown to reduce movement dysfunction in patients with Parkinson’s and dystonia, and to alleviate some cases of chronic pain. They’re also relatively safe, especially considering that you’re placing electrodes in the brain – the mortality rate is less than 1%

And these devices are getting better. We’ve seen how the next generation of DBS implants for Parkinson’s will be able to actively monitor and respond to brain activity. In the future, optogenetics will allow doctors to use light, not electricity, to stimulate parts of the brain (as we’ve seen with rodents). How widespread might these types of devices become when they have the precision to target just a few neurons at a time, and can respond autonomously to treat patients on their own?

Other companies are getting into the DBS implant market, St Jude’s Medical is gaining approval for its Libra device in Europe, and scientists are expanding the list of illnesses that may benefit from stimulation. Eighty thousand? Millions of people around the world have Parkinson’s Disease. Add in severe depression, or chronic pain and the potential number of patients for DBS implants gets very large very quickly. How long until the number of brain cyborgs passes 250,000? 1 million?

Lead wires from electrodes (pink, yellow) penetrate deep in the brain.

Typically I get excited about the idea of brain implants transitioning from treatment/repair to augmentation/enhancement. But even if we never pursue implants that increase mental performance, the sheer size of the restorative implant market is likely to be much bigger than anticipated. We should remember, too, that many movement disorders like Parkinson’s disproportionately affect the elderly. Could the prevalence of these devices reach 1% among aged patients in industrialized nations? I think it’s possible, especially as they become more advanced and versatile in the treatments they provide.

Deep brain stimulation implants are just one kind of medical implant that could find its way into our skulls. It’s already been used by more than 80,000 patients and there’s every reason to presume it will become more widespread in the near future. Other devices, as they transition out of the experimental phase of development, may find less resistance to adoption thanks to the early successes of DBS. Cybernetic implants are already here, and they’re only going to get more diverse and capable with time.

[image credits: St Jude's Medical, Medtronic, WikiCommons]
[source: Medtronic, St. Jude's Medical, NIH]

New studies in the US and Japan highlight important genetic links to Parkinson's disease. Good news for those suffering from the debilitating illness.

Affordable genetic testing continues to enable scientists to find exciting new discoveries that may help doctors predict, prevent, and treat disease. Two teams of researchers recently published in Nature Genetics (a Japanese team from Kobe University, and a US team from NIH) have collaborated to find that five important genetic variants are linked to Parkinson’s. This debilitating brain disease degrades muscle control through a reduction in brain chemicals and affects 1-2% of those over 65. This research was the largest case of genetic testing for Parkinson’s, ever. With the amount of genetic data that can now be processed quickly and cheaply, studies like these are just the beginning.

These two Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) rely on finding important comparisons of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). 23andMe declared war on Parkinson’s by analyzing SNPs one individual at a time and hope to gather 10,000+ samples total. These two GWAS, however,  have already examined the genetics of many thousands of volunteers. By sifting through this massive amount of data, scientists can glean which genetic markers may indicate increased risks of the disease. It’s only been in the last few years that genetic testing has been cheap enough to facilitate such studies. As whole genome sequencing becomes cheaper, researchers will be able to study more DNA than just SNPs. This may lead to an even better understanding of the links between genes and illness. We live in a very exciting time – there is an ocean of data in our DNA that is going to be explored in the next few years.

The Japanese team, led by Dr. Tasishi Toda of Kobe University, discovered four important loci for Parkinson’s named PARK16, BST, SNCA, and LRRK2. Information was taken from 2011 patients with the disease and 18,381 healthy individuals, all of Japanese descent. In the US, Dr. Andrew Singleton of the NIH led researchers to confirm the SNCA locus and add a new one: MAPT. Their sampling consisted of 1713 patients, and 3978 healthy volunteers followed by 3361 patients and 4573 volunteers, all of European ancestory.

Why am I giving you all these numbers? To prove a point. We are talking about tens of thousands (30k+) of people each having their genome analyzed on the cheap. That’s remarkable, and something that would have been unheard of just five years ago.

The two teams confirmed that PARK16, SNCA, and LRRK2 are important loci for all Parkinson’s patients. Interestingly, MAPT was only an indicator for European ancestry, and likewise with BST for Japanese ancestry.

As SNP genetic analysis gets even cheaper, and whole genome studies fall within the budget of research institutions, we are going to see more and more studies like these two. Already individuals can gain access to affordable SNP analysis, and soon the same will be true for whole genome sequencing. That means that you will be able to know for yourself which important markers you carry that may indicate a predilection to an illness. Armed with such knowledge we will all be able to take better control of our health. Hang in there everybody, we’re making progress. (Not so) slowly but surely.

[photo credit: Kristen Ryder]

With backing from Google founder Sergey Brin (recently diagnosed with a genetic predisposition to the disease), Actor and Parkinson’s sufferer Michael J. Fox, and the Parkinson’s Institute, the project has serious credibility and backing.  In order to rally the masses to participate in its Parkinson’s effort, 23andMe will be offering its services, normally $399, for a reduced price of only $25 to members of families with a Parkinson’s history.

For more than a year now 23andMe has been offering analysis of DNA to individuals.  It works like this: 23andMe sends you a kit that allows you to take a swab of saliva from your cheek and mail back to them.  A few weeks later, 23andMe will have analyzed more than 550,000 portions of your DNA, called SNP’s, and the results of this analysis are published to a website where you can view the results.  The analysis can provide information about your predisposition to more than 100 diseases, offer concrete information about your ancestry, and explain the genetic basis for many traits such as eye color.  I have personally tried out the service from both 23andMe, as well as competitor DecodeMe.

23andMe has highlighted its Parkinson’s effort as an example of a new era of research that it calls Research 2.0.  Cheesy name perhaps, but the idea is one that we have long been advocating here at the hub.  With the rise of cheap, fast genetic analysis, superfast computers and software for data analysis, and an ever expanding array of internet tools for collaboration and communication, a new era of understanding and fighting disease is upon us.

We can expect the Parkinson’s initiative from 23andMe to serve as a model for efforts to fight several other diseases over the next decade.  Although the old model of fighting disease through a series of individual, private efforts existing autonomously in research labs, corporations, and foundations across the world is still valid in many cases, the effort from 23andMe represents the rise of a powerful new paradigm of open, collaborative disease fighting.  Today’s internet allows for a new type of partnership between interested individuals, sufferers, corporations, research facilities, and governments, empowered by a centralized community for information sharing and collaboration.

Although the Parkinson’s intiative announced today is an exciting development, we must keep in mind that diseases such as Parkinson’s are extremely complex, likely arising from several genetic as well as non-genetic influences.  The quest to cure and prevent these terrible diseases will not be easy and will not come overnight.  Yet with ever increasing advances in knoweldge and technology, victory is increasingly within our sight.