Medical Prize for Advances in Parkinson’s

Dr Miratul Muqit from the University of Dundee has received recognition for his breakthroughs in understanding Parkinson’s disease, as both a Consultant Neurologist treating patients at Ninewells Hospital and also as a researcher investigating the debilitating condition at the University’s School of Life Sciences.

He has been awarded the 2018 Graham Bull Prize in Clinical Science and Goulstonian Lecture of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the first Dundee-based clinician to receive this award and the first clinician from Scotland to win it for 40 years. He is due to receive his prize at a ceremony in October and deliver his Goulstonian Lecture at the RCP’s annual conference in March 2018.

The Goulstonian Lecture was endowed in memory of Dr Theodore Goulston and has been bestowed every year since 1639, making it one of the world’s longest running medical awards. The Graham Bull Prize was established in 1988 in honour of the first director of the MRC Clinical Research Centre.

They are awarded jointly each year by the RCP to researchers under the age of 45 who have made a major contribution to clinical science. Previous recipients include some of the UK’s best-known clinician scientists such as Peter Ratcliffe, Mark Walport, and Patrick Maxwell.

He said, “I am thrilled to receive this honour which is a reflection of the talent and dedication of the scientists in my research lab. This award highlights the fantastic research and clinical environment in Dundee. I am also extremely grateful to the funding bodies who have supported our research including local Dundee-based charities.”

Supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship, Dr Muqit’s research has shown how two proteins called PINK1 and Parkin play a crucial role in keeping cells healthy by ensuring that the energy-producing machinery of cells, mitochondria, are rapidly broken down and removed when damaged. Derailment of this process is likely to be a major cause of Parkinson’s. Dr Muqit is now exploiting this knowledge to design novel potential therapies.