Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) awarded Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai $670,266 under the Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders (CFDA 93.853) program, with an award date of January 20, 2026, and completion date of December 31, 2030. This project grant supports a comprehensive research initiative to map the epigenomic and spatial transcriptomic landscape in Parkinson's Disease (PD) while leveraging comparative data from Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and related dementias. The research expands upon previously established resources, including a cross-disorder atlas encompassing data from 1,494 donors across seven brain-related disorders and a PD-specific atlas derived from 100 PD donors across five brain regions.

The project deliverables focus on systematically characterizing shared and distinct transcriptional changes between AD, PD, and related dementia populations, identifying cell types with significant proportional shifts associated with disease progression, and deciphering impaired cellular cross-talk and gene regulatory programs driving disease progression. Through integration of epigenomics and spatial transcriptomics data, the research aims to expand understanding beyond currently narrow focuses on specific cell types and brain regions to provide a more comprehensive view of disease mechanisms. This work advances NINDS's mission to reduce the burden of neurological disease through fundamental knowledge development in brain and nervous system function.