Effective treatments for neurodegenerative disorders are one of the most important healthcare requirements of the 21st Century. The cornerstone of the search for treatments should be an understanding the causes of neurodegeneration and the mechanisms by which important therapies work.
Our purpose is to apply a systems approach to Parkinson's Disease. Specifically, we consider it to be a complex interacting network of contributory processes (diagram pictured right). We then apply the analytical techniques that have been developed to understand the behaviour of complex technological systems. In this way we aim to build on, and add, to existing research efforts from life science researchers.
This website is a portal to some of the research groups around world who are taking a systems approach to Parkinson's Disease. Although the portal is hosted and run by the Systems Biology Group at the Hamilton Institute, we wish it to become a community-driven "one stop shop" for the current systems oriented research in the area, and to act as a stimulus for further research by people from outside the classical life science groups. In this spirit, it is primarily aimed at visitors with a background in physical/chemical engineering, or applied mathematics, and who are interested in learning about how they might use their skills and talents to help understand the complexities of Parkinson’s Disease.