NEW YORK – Metabolon announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with the University of Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre (OPDC) to investigate the metabolic changes occurring in Parkinson's throughout disease progression.
The Morrisville, North Carolina-based company will take longitudinal measurements of serum and cerebrospinal fluid from samples collected by the OPDC from the institution's longitudinal Oxford Discovery Cohort. Metabolomic data will be integrated with clinical and genetic data to provide a more complete picture of Parkinson's evolution.
The Discovery Cohort is a prospective, longitudinal study that has recruited patients with early idiopathic Parkinson's disease, healthy controls, and participants at risk of PD, as well as participants with REM sleep behavior disorder, who are also at risk of developing Parkinson's.
"Metabolon's highly accurate data will enable the identification of metabolomic biomarkers crucial to understanding and better predicting Parkinson's disease progression to help improve patient care and the proactive management of symptoms," Metabolon CEO Rohan Hastie said in a statement.
The current collaboration adds to several that Metabolon has initiated with other academic institutions.
In June, the company partnered with the University of Maryland School of Medicine to understand incidental disease by bringing metabolomics to the school's Amish Research Program. That same month, Metabolon also partnered with King's College London to study metabolomic data from twins participating in the TwinsUK project.
Earlier this year, Metabolon also began working with FinnGen, Finland's public-private population health research project, to develop metabolic profiles of carriers of disease-associated genetic variants, in search of insights into the basic biology of disease processes.