Sortwell Named the Edwin A. Brophy Chair in Central Nervous System Disorders
September 30, 2022
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Department of Translational Neuroscience (TransNeuro) researcher and Professor Caryl Sortwell, PhD, has been named the recipient of the Edwin A. Brophy Chair in Central Nervous System Disorders.
The endowed chair funding will help advance Sortwell’s groundbreaking research, which is focused on reducing symptoms and slowing the progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD)—a chronic, degenerative neurologic brain disorder—by providing scientific evidence to support clinical trials of disease-modifying therapies.
The urgency of Sortwell’s work grows each year. According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, 60,000 North Americans will be diagnosed with PD by the end of 2022; a growing number which will add to the over one million people in the U.S. living with PD, and over 10 million worldwide.
“The overall goal is to eliminate this disease altogether for those diagnosed, and to find ways for patients to outlive this chronic, degenerative disorder that so many suffer with,” Sortwell said. “While we may not find a cure in my lifetime, if we can stop the disease in its tracks, we can help make an immediate impact on people’s lives."