ZHONGTAO ZHANG, PH.D.,
Takes on Parkinson’s Disease A biochemist pinpoints dopamine oxidation as the cause for brain cell death and depletion of the neurotransmitter that characterizes the disease’s early stages. By Marjorie Roberts
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efore the actor Michael J. Fox gave a face and a poignant backstory to Parkinson’s disease (PD), research into the motor system disorder was as inconspicuous as the neurodegenerative illness in its earliest stage—the years before the telltale symptoms of tremor, rigid limbs and slow movement begin to appear. Thanks to the actor’s foundation for Parkinson’s research and his passion to maneuver PD to the front burner, the disease has caught the fascination of a new breed of scientists who are eager to combine its long history of significant discoveries and disappointing outcomes with the promises of molecular biology and stem cell therapy to find a cause and cure. Zhongtao Zhang, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is a basic science pioneer who stands by the conviction that to understand the enigma that is Parkinson’s disease depends on finding out why the dopamine-producing brain cells (neurons) are disappearing from the area of the brain known as the substantia nigra. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps to relay messages that control body movement. As the chemical is depleted, the lives of PD sufferers slowly diminish as the chronic illness progresses toward a debilitated end. In some 30 percent of cases, there is mental deterioration as well.
After Zhongtao Zhang received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Purdue University, he did cancer research as a post-doc at Yale and NYU. Then he decided to study the other end of the cell growth process— neurodegeneration—and trained his sights on Parkinson’s disease. CHIRONIAN • New YorkMedical MedicalCollege College 10 CHIRONIAN • New York 7