 Thank you so much for everyone for having me this evening to speak to and of course to the Brain Foundation It's sponsors donors and scientific committee for this fabulous award Now it's easy to feel helpless when we hear the statistics of Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease is a condition that has an enormous human burden associated with it affecting eight to ten million people worldwide and One in every 350 Australians But in addition to this enormous human burden, it also has a significant economic cost in 2014 in Australia alone the estimated cost of Parkinson's disease was 9.9 billion Australian dollars This is an increase of 46 percent since 2005 and in 2018 those statistics are even scarier with current cost estimates of about 12.3 billion Australian dollars and that's just in this year alone And unfortunately like with most neurodegenerative conditions, it's statistics that are only getting worse between now in the year 2030 the incidence of Parkinson's disease is estimated to double which of course will be catastrophic not only for our economy But of course for our aging population and the millions of families that are also affected by the condition So it's easy to feel helpless when you hear these statistics But when I find myself in the lab staring down the barrel of the microscope Confronted with these overwhelming odds instead of feeling helpless I like to remember the words of one of the greatest scientists who've ever lived Albert Einstein Who once said that when you do nothing, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless But when you get involved You feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing that you're working together to make something better So I want to especially think the Brain Foundation for being willing to work together to try to make this condition better On behalf of myself my co-investigator dr. Andrew care from a quarry University and professor Mark Hutchinson from the University of Adelaide We're really excited to share with you what we're going to be doing this year now When a lot of people think about Parkinson's disease, they think about the loss of dopaminergic neurons But this is in fact only half the story Because one thing the Parkinson's shares in common with Alzheimer's disease motor neuron disease and other neurodegenerative conditions is a Pathological spread of proteins throughout the brain now in Parkinson's disease the protein that spreads pathologically is a protein known as alpha Synuclein and in 2003 the neuropathologist Brock Actually described the spread of this protein throughout the brain saying that it begins low down in the brainstem spreads up and eventually Targets the entire cortex now this actually parallels the clinical progression of the disease and This seemed very strange because the dogma in neurodegenerative disease was that alpha-synuclein works a lot like tau and Alzheimer's disease It sits inside the neurons So how can a pathological protein that sits inside the neurons be spreading throughout the brain? Well in more recent years It's become clear that those same neurons that have been infected by this misfolded alpha-synuclein can actually release it into the extracellular space and what's particularly concerning is that previously healthy neurons can actually take up this Pathological protein and themselves become aberrant by causing misfolding of their native alpha-synuclein at the synaptic space So we're hoping to pioneer a new technology that will actually target this alpha-synuclein From the extracellular space and help to clear it Now this is significant because the hope is that by helping to clear this aberrant alpha-synuclein early We may be able to slow or perhaps even stop the progression of the disease So this year thanks to the support of the brain foundation We'll be able to carry out the critical in vitro work for validation of our technique with the hope of being able to Move this into in vivo studies in future years and perhaps even apply to other neurodegenerative conditions So look out for future applications. So thank you so much again affectionately we like to call this technique cage fighting for Parkinson's disease and I really look forward to this year getting in the Ring with all of you to go a couple rounds against this terrible condition. Thank you again for your support