Movement Disorders Research in the Department of Neurological Surgery includes intensive collaboration between researchers within the department, as well as with researchers in other UCSF departments and outside institutions.
 
Krys Bankiewicz MD, PhD
Gene therapy for Parkinson's disease
 
Paul Larson MD
Neurotransplantation strategies for Parkinson's disease; intraoperative neuroimaging
 
Philip Starr MD, PhD
Surgical treatment of movement disorders, basal ganglia physiology in movement disorders
 
Interdepartmental Collaboration
Interdepartmental collaborations include work being done by Dr. Starr on the neurophysiology of dystonia; exploration of efficacy of cortical stimulation as a therapy for Parkinson's disease by Dr. Bankiewicz; involvement by Drs. Larson and Starr in an experimental protocol to utilize real-time intraoperative MRI in the placement of deep brain stimulators for Parkinson's disease; and participation in a human gene therapy protocol for Parkinson's disease by Drs. Bankiewicz, Larson, and Starr.
 
UCSF-Wide Projects
The Parkinson's Disease Research, Education and Clinical Center (PADRECC) is a collaborative effort with the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, headed by Dr. William Marks from the UCSF Neurology department. PADRECC is a major source of funding for a clinical trial on deep brain stimulation versus medical therapy for Parkinson's treatment, as well as other research on Parkinson's disease involving Drs. Starr and Larson.
 
A collaborative project involving John Houde (UCSF Otolaryngology) and Dr. William Marks (UCSF Neurology) is studying the speech deficits associated with Parkinson's disease using behavioral and functional imaging methods.
 
Collaboration with Outside Institutions
Dr. Bankiewicz is involved with a multi-center, multidisciplinary collaborative group called the Parkinson's Disease Gene Therapy Study Group (PDGTSG), which formed to seek support for those activities that will lead to a large-scale clinical trial of gene therapy for patients with the illness.