Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Weill Medical College of Cornell University received a $671,445 Project Grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) under the Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders program (CFDA 93.853), effective May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2031. The project develops an integrated pipeline for early Parkinson's Disease (PD) prediction and disease-modifying drug repurposing, targeting the prodromal or pre-diagnostic phase of PD when therapeutic intervention may be most effective. The award funds research to address the critical gap that current disease-modifying treatments do not exist for PD, and that neurodegeneration often advances substantially before clinical diagnosis, limiting the efficacy of late-stage interventions.

The project deliverables include three primary components: (1) an artificial intelligence-driven framework for harmonizing multimodal health data across PD research datasets, biomedical databases, and electronic health records to build predictive models for early PD identification; (2) a causal learning-based trial emulation framework to identify and evaluate drug repurposing candidates targeting the prodromal PD population; and (3) validation studies leveraging Parkinson's Disease-derived induced pluripotent stem cells and mouse models. These research products directly support NINDS's mission to reduce the burden of neurological disease through fundamental understanding and development of novel therapeutic approaches.