Personalized treatment may soon come for Parkinson’s disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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More than 200,000 people in the US alone are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease yearly, but it can be caused by multiple forms of a misfolded protein called alpha synuclein. Ted Dawson, a Parkinson’s expert at Johns Hopkins, says managing the condition will soon integrate which type of the protein an individual has.

Dawson: Treatment of Parkinson's disease is going to come down to what’s the molecular definition of your Parkinson's disease, much in the same way that cancer therapy is directed to your type of cancer. The type of mutation you have determines what is the best way to treat your cancer. It's going to be the same way eventually in Parkinson's disease and what strain of synuclein do you have is probably going to dictate your treatment.    :31

Dawson says individualized treatments are also on the horizon. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.