Grant: Training Grant

Alzheimer¿s Disease (AD) followed by Parkinson¿s Disease (PD)are Canada¿s most common and devastating neurodegenerative disorders. Insidious cognitive and physical decline renders victims dependent upon custodial care at an annual cost of $9 billion. The lack of therapeutic options has been dubbed the ¿biggest unmet medical need in neurology¿ Arguably, the next major advance in rational therapeutic design will come in tying a cell¿s metabolome into genomic and proteomic maps of disease. Here, we propose an unique trans- institutional training program in ¿lipidomics¿ designed for basic and clinical scientists that focuses on characterizing global and cellular changes in lipid metabolism that render neurons vulnerable to AD and PD based at the University of Ottawa (Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology) and University of Toronto (Center for Research in Neurodegenerative Disease).