Evolution and Natural selection questions/answers

Can the war on
Parkinson’s disease
be won?




EPQ Dissertation

Kamil Ali

, Contents


Literature review …………………………………………………………………………... 4



Dissertation ……………………………………………………………………………..……. 15



Conclusion …........................................................................................ 30



Bibliography ……………………………………………………………….…………………… 32



Project form proposal ………………………………………………….…………………..35



Activity Log…………………………………………………………….………………………….40



Evaluation ………………………………………………………………………………………….42




2

, EPQ PLAN

Can the war against Parkinson’s be won?

- Introduction
● What is Parkinson’s disease?
● What causes Parkinson’s disease
● What is dopamine?
● Display arguments
● Explain what the dissertation will discuss
- Why is there not a cure for Parkinson’s?
- History of Parkinson’s disease?
● Who discovered Parkinson’s disease?
● How did scientists carry out experiments?
● How has the discovery helped modern scientists with coming up with a
cure?
- Factors that could cause the disease
● Genetics
● Environment
- Current treatments
● Deep brain surgery
● Drugs (e.g. Levodopa)
● Advantages and disadvantages of the treatments
- GDNF trial (Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor)
● What is GDNF and the trial
● Why was it not a success?
● Advantage and disadvantage of the trial
● Could this be the solution to Parkinson’s if more time and investment is
placed?
- Future of Parkinson’s
● Can we get a world without Parkinson’s disease?
● Potential diagnostic tools/techniques to treat the disease
● Future developments
● Stem cell therapy
● Fetal transplant
● Artificial intelligence
- Conclusion

● Final answer to the question
● What is the strongest argument?
● Which treatments are the most effective?
● Evaluation of future treatments




3

, Literature Review



Source 1: The history of Parkinson’s disease: Early Clinical Description and
Neurological Therapies

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3234454/

This article explains the history of Parkinson's from the mid 1800’s and how early clinical
trials were carried out to find causes and treatments that have provided valuable information
for scientists in the 21st century. This was a very useful source as it gave me an insight of
how Parkinson’s was discovered by scientists in the 1800’s. One thing I found really useful
was how the article showed the early medical journal of James Parkinson being further
developed and refined by many scientists as they carried out various clinical trials to find out
about things like the pathway of dopamine and dopaminergic defects. These discoveries
allowed scientists to carry out the first human trials of Levodopa. Furthermore, as this was
my first source, it really helped me understand the foundations of Parkinson’s and triggered a
plethora of questions that I really want to find out and research on. It also made me appreciate
how the research and information gathered about Parkinson’s in the 1800’s is helping
scientists in the 21st century to do more clinical trials. The explanation of clinical trials were
very detailed which meant that I found certain concepts and scientific words very difficult to
understand. However, I did search keywords which made it a little easier to briefly
understand. This source is reliable as it is published by the US National Library of Medicine
Institute of Health. This means that they have a lot of resources and information to create this
article. Even though it was written in 2011, the information is still useful as it is mentioning
about the past clinical trials which is what I wanted to find out about and how they
progressively developed. One thing that caught my eye in the article was the mention of the
drug Levodopa. For my next source I want to find out what this drug is and how it is used
now in the 21st century. I also want to find out if these drugs are helpful for Parkinson's
patients and if it outweighs the side effects




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