Bankiewicz Laboratory for Translational Neuroscience Research

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Our Research

All of our projects depend on the creation and advancement of direct infusion of drugs and therapies into the brain.

We have developed a technique in which nanoparticles, including viral vectors and liposomes can be infused directly into brain tumors to give enhanced drug efficacy.

Parkinson's Disease

For many years, and continuing still, we have been working on development of direct drug delivery into the brain including cell transplantation, gene transfer and growth factor infusions for Parkinson's disease.

Niemann-Pick

Through gene therapy, we are working to eliminate the gene responsible for Niemann-Pick (acid sphingomyelinase).

Dyskinesia

By studying the effects of L-Dopa on the brain, we are developing gene therapy for L-Dopa-induced dyskinesia.

Department of Neurological surgery at UCSF

Collaborators

Like many laboratories, we share our successes with a large number of scientific collaborators. Various members of the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF (Mitchell Berger, Susan Chang, John Park, Philip Starr, Paul Larson and Sandeep Kunwar) have played critical roles in advancing our programs in Parkinson's disease and brain cancer. We are also indebted to Drs. Michael Aminoff and Chadwick Christine of the Department of Neurology at UCSF for their expert management of the Phase 1 clinical study of AAV-hAADC gene therapy for Parkinson's disease. An important source of support for our Parkinson's disease gene therapy program has come through our membership of a novel NIH-supported program (1U54NS045309) that involves that cooperation of a number of different research groups at University of Rochester (Roger Kurlan, William Bowers), Northwestern University (Martha C. Bohn), Cedar-Sinai Hospital (Pedro Lowenstein, Maria Castro) and Georgetown University (Howard Federoff, Katy McGuire-Zeiss). Our neuroimaging studies are done in collaboration with Center for Molecular and Functional Imaging at UCSF (Tracy McKnight and Sarah Nelson), UC Berkeley UC Berkeley (William Jagust, Jamie Eberling) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Translational neuro-oncology projects are performed in close collaboration with University of California at Davis (Peter Dickinson, Richard LeCouteur, Robert Higgins). Studies aimed at understanding development of L-Dopa -induced dyskinesias are performed in collaboration with Wake Forest University (Linda Porrino). We are indebted also to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and the Kinetics Foundation, as well as to corporate collaborators such as Genzyme Inc., BrainLab, and Therataxis.