Dr. Timothy Ryan, the Tri-Institutional Professor of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been named one of eight academic principal investigators to participate in the SPARK NS Translational Research Program, 2025 cohort.
The two-year program is designed to advance promising academic discoveries in neuroscience by providing up to $2 million in funding, education, mentoring and networking opportunities.
Dr. Ryan’s project, titled “A Bioenergetic Activator for Parkinson’s Disease,” builds on his existing research and will allow him and his team to work on a treatment that may prevent or cure Parkinson’s disease. That research, which was published in August 2024, demonstrated that an enzyme called phosphoglycerate kinase 1 (PGK1) has a critical, albeit unexpected, role in the production of chemical energy in brain cells. During that research, Dr. Ryan and his team discovered the drug terazosin, which has been used for three decades to treat benign prostate hyperplasia, had an effect on PGK1.
“One of the first problems that happens in a brain that is developing Parkinsonism is that dopamine neurons begin to die,” Dr. Ryan said. The drug, he said, protects these neurons by enhancing the activity of PGK1, improving ATP production and neuron energy metabolism.
Dr. Ryan will use the SPARK NS 2025 award to investigate innovative ways to translate this profound finding to an impactful therapeutic for Parkinson’s disease.