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REVIE W Open Access
Progress of basic research in Parkinson’s disease
in China: data mini-review from the National
Natural Science Foundation
Heqi Cao
1*
, Gang Chen
2
and Erdan Dong
1
Abstract
This review is to analyze the role of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) on the development of
basic research of Parkinson’s disease from 1990 to 2012. Data on the total number of projects and funding of NSFC
allocated to Parkinson’s disease, as well as hotspots in western countries, papers published, awards, personnel
training, subject construction were collected, and the role of NSFC on other sources of funding was evaluated. Over
the past 23 years, a full range of continuous funding from NSFC has led to fruitful results and a strong impetus to
the progress of basic research of Parkinson’s disease.
Review
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurode generative
disease observed in the elderly. The latest epidemiological
survey shows the total prevalence of PD to be about 160/
100,000, but it is above 1.7% among individuals over the
age of 65. In China , there currently over 2 m illion PD
patients , and this number continues to increa se as the
population ages [1,2]. Due to its high prevalence, high rate
of disability, and chronic disease course, PD has become a
matter of scientific concern as well as a social problem in
the fields of demography and health. The application codes
for PD from National Natural Science Foundation of China
(NSFC) are H0912 (neurodegeneration, neuroregeneration,
and related diseases) and H0904 (movement regulation and
movement disorders). Here 137 PD-related projects that
addressed these issues over the past 23 years (1990–2012)
were found in the NSFC databa se and analyzed. PD
projects funded by the E.U. and the U.S. National Institutes
of Health (NIH) were also considered for comparison
purposes. To perform a comprehensive analysis on funding
strategies and hotspots of NSFC in the field of PD, priority
PD projects performed over the past 23 years are reviewed
regarding their funding and results, and potential problems
are also discussed.
Hotspots in NIH and E.U.-funded studies of PD
PD is the most common neurodegenerative disease in
Europe and the United States, and it has received a great
deal of attention in Western countries. In the U.S., data
from 2003–2005 show that funding for PD-related research
added up to more than one billion U.S. dollars, including
investment from private industry. Be cause of this huge
financial investment, more than ten types of clinical drugs
for the treatment of PD have been released in the past
20 years. These include pramipexole, ropinirole, tolcapone,
entacapone, apomorphine, rasagiline, selegiline, carbidopa/
levodopa/entacapone, selegiline sublingual, and rotigotine.
In 2007, worldwide rankings in P D investme nt were a s
follows: North America accounted for 52% (47% from
the United States, 5% from Canada), the E.U. accounted for
38% (14% from the U.K. and 24% from other countries),
and Japan accounted for 5%. The total amount of PD
investment in China is difficult to estimate because
data are scattered across the Ministry of Science and
Technology, the Ministry of Health, N SFC , and health
research institutions at different local levels. However, it is
clear that, compared to Europe and the United States,
investment in PD-related scientific research in China is
still limited [3].
Funding information was retrieved from the NIH website
(http://report.nih.gov/). Data showed that, in 2011, NIH
funded a total of about 620 projects on PD research,
amounting to 151 million U.S. dollars. Funded hotspots
* Correspondence: caohq@nsfc.gov.cn
1
Department of Medical Science, National Natural Science Foundation of
China, Beijing 100085, China
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Translational
Neurodegeneration
© 2013 Cao et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cao et al. Translational Neurodegeneration 2013, 2:18
http://www.translationalneurodegeneration.com/content/2/1/18
included a large number of prospective clinical trials and
studies on new drug development, genetic background
studies based on a variety of genes , proteins , signaling
pathways, and mitochondrial dysfunction, deep brain
stimulation (DBS) studies based on new technologies,
studies on environmental risk factors and early diagnosis of
PD,andstudiesoncognitivedysfunctioninPDpatients.
During the execution of Research Framework-program 7
(http://cordis.europa.eu/) (2007–2013), E.U. member states
and the European Commission invested in a total of about
120 PD research proje ct s, and the research hotspots
concentrated in PD related drug development and clinical
trials, cell transplantation for treatment of PD, gene therapy
of PD, the relationship between lysosomal dysfunction
and the pathogenesis of PD, and the relationship between
neuroimmunology and PD.
Brief analysis of NSFC funding of PD-related research
projects (1990–2012)
Overview
From 1990 to 2012, NSFC funded a total of 137 PD-
related research projects. Among these, 81 (59%) were
funded by the General Program Fund, 46 (34%) by the
Youth Fund, 6 (4%) by the Regional Fund (including the
specialfund),and4(3%)bytheKeyProjectFund(Figure1).
Over the past 23 years, the total funding amounted to
49.04 million RMB, among which the General Program
Fund accounted for 31.35 million RMB (64%), the Youth
Fund 9.69 million RMB (20%), the Regional Fund (including
special fund) 1.86 million RMB (4%), and the Key Project
Fund 6.14 million RMB (12%) (Figure 2). Regarding the
funding trend, during the 20 years following 1990, the
number of funded PD-related project s has been in the
single digits every year and the amount of total annual
funding has been less than 2 million RMB. However during
the past six years, both the number of funded PD projects
and the amount of funding have grown substantially. In
2007, the number of funded projects was 14 (a total of 4.95
million RMB), and in 2013, the number was 31 (a total of
13.49 million RMB). Over the past six years, the number
of funded PD projects increased by 120% and the total
amount of funding increased by 173%. This shows that
the NSFC has come to pay more attention to funding
PD-related studies re cently. Meanwhile, the number of
neurologists, neurosurgeons, and neurobiologists applying
for grants for PD-related studies has also increased every
year.
Funding hotspots and fields
Over the past 23 years, the NSFC funded a total of 83
(61%) projects on PD pathogenesis, 11 (8%) on diagnosis,
and 42 (51%) on treatment. A total of 30.92 million RMB
(62%) was spent in support of studies on etiology, 4.90
million RMB (10%) on diagnostic techniques, and 13.87
million RMB (28%) on treatment. Among funded etiology
studies, 63 (46%) of the projects focused on the genetic
background of PD and protein function abnormalities,
and the total amount of funding was 22.10 million RMB
(45%), accounting for the majority of NSFC funding for
PD-related studies (Figure 3). These studies investigated PD
caused by genetic mutations, PD caused by abnormalities
in signaling pathways, the relationship between immune-
mediated inflammat ion and PD, and the relationship
between iron and PD pathogenesis. In the field of PD
diagnosis, funded projects mainly focused on finding
early biomarkers and establishing an early warning system
for PD. In the field of treatment, 23 (17%) of the funded
projects were related to the development of new drugs
covering a total of 7.69 million RMB (16%); 11 (8%) were
studies on PD treatment using stem cells, covering a total
of 4.46 million RMB (9%); 8 (6%) evaluated PD treatment
Figure 1 Trend of number of projects during the past 23 years, which showed that NSFC fund more basic studies in PD field year
by year.
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using electric stimulation, covering a total of 2.55 million
RMB (5%).
Key projects in PD research
Since 1990, the NSFC funded a total of 4 (3%) Key Projects
in the field of PD research (Table 1), and the total amount
of funding was 6.14 million RMB (13% ). These project s
were regionally balanced re garding locations of the la-
boratories that carried out the studies. One project wa s
conducted in eastern China at Shanghai Jiaotong University
(led by Weidong Le and performed on biological markers
for early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and gene-targeted
therapy), one was conducted in southwestern China at the
Fourth Military Medical University (led by Guodong Gao
and performed on mechanisms underlying synchronous
oscillation and stochastic resonance of abnormal symptoms
of Parkinson’s disease), one was conducted in northern
China at Q ingdao University (led by Junxia Xie, and
performed on mechanisms and prevention of selective
aggregation of iron in substantia nigra and its specific
damage to dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson’s), and
one was conducted in southern China at Sun Yat-sen
University (led by Mingtao Li and performed on mecha-
nisms underlying GSK-3alpha/beta regulation and its use
as a target for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease). This
and the projects funded by the Youth Fund and General
Program Fund show that NSFC funding in PD has focused
on projects that investigated etiology, early diagnosis, and
new methods of treating PD.
Outcomes of funded projects
We searched in PUBMED (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pubmed/) for PD research publications from 1990 to 2012
(Figure 4), which showed that more and more articles
have been published in PD field in the past 10 years inter-
nationally. At the same time, a search on Web of Science
Figure 2 Trend of money funded in PD research during the past 23 years, which showed that NSFC improve the financial intensity in
PD field year by year.
Figure 3 NSFC Funding hotspots and fields in PD research, which demonstrated that the main region for NSFC projects were about
etiology and genetic studies in the past 23 years.
Cao et al. Translational Neurodegeneration 2013, 2:18 Page 3 of 5
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(http://apps.webofknowledge.com/) showed that, through
the present, there have been a total of 773 papers with an
SCI on PD related-research in China. Among these, 141
(18%) were funded by the NSFC. Especially early on, many
Chinese scholars did not note their sources of funding in
their papers. In others, the source of funding may have
been provided in non-standard formats. This suggests that
the actual number of NSFC-funded PD projects may
have exceeded 141. The majority of these 141 papers were
published in mainstream neuroscience journals. The
XiegroupinQingdaoUniversitypublishedapaperin
Neurology in January 2013 stating that , in the temporal
lobe tissues of PD patients, the expression levels of proteins
related to iron and iron metabolism (DMT1, IRE, TfR1,
FPN1, and IRP1) were significantly lower than in healthy
controls, but the expression levels of these proteins in the
brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer’s disease remained
unchanged. This indicates that abnormalities in iron
metabolism and i ron distribution may be related to PD
[4]. The C hen grou p ba sed i n Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai
Jiaotong University, published a review in Progress in
Neurobiology in August 2012 on the significance of kinases
and related signaling pathways in the treatment of PD [5].
This group received a total of 14 NSFC grants over the
past 23 years and another grant from the National 973
Program (2011CB504104, a basic study on pathogenesis
of and on intervention strategies for Parkinson’s disease).
This group was granted the first prize Natural Science
award conferred by the Chinese Ministry of Education in
2010, and their results had a profound impact on the field
of PD research internationally.
Suggestions and prospects
By reviewing patterns of funding in the field of PD research
in China over the past, there were found to be relatively
few studies on the surgical treatment of PD. Although, over
the past several decades , stereotactic te chniques have
undergone rapid development , and DBS technology is
currently being perfected, there are still a large number of
clinical issues that need to be resolved with basic research.
More neurosurgeons may apply for studies on the surgical
treatment of PD. In addition, current DBS technology was
Table 1 Key projects in PD research
Year PI Affiliation Title Fund (X10000RMB)
2007 Weidong Le Shanghai Jiaotong University Biological markers for early diagnosis of Parkinson’s
disease and gene-targeted therapy
150
2009 Junxia Xie Qingdao University Mechanisms and prevention of selective aggregation
of iron in substantia nigra and its specific damage to
dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson’s disease
164
2009 Guodong Gao The Fourth Military Medical University Mechanisms underlying synchronous oscillation
and stochastic resonance of abnormal symptoms
of Parkinson’s disease
170
2010 Mingtao Li Sun Yat-sen University Mechanisms underlying GSK-3alpha/beta regulation
and its use as a target for the treatment
of Parkinson's disease
230
Figure 4 Number of publications titled by ‘Parkinson’s disease’ in PUBMED from 1990 to 2012, which demonstrated that more articles
in this field published in the past 10 years.
Cao et al. Translational Neurodegeneration 2013, 2:18 Page 4 of 5
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found to have been applied to the treatment of a variety of
neuropsychiatric disorders, such as anorexia nervosa [6]
and depression [7]. Although NSFC mainly funds ba sic
research, it may also provide financial support for small,
highly innovative clinical trials. For example, the explora-
tions performed by Canadian scholars in anorexia nervosa
[6] collected data from treatment and follow-ups of only
six patients, but the results were considered intriguing
enough to be published in Lancet. China’s population is
gradually aging, and the occurrence of various neurode-
generative diseases such as PD, is significantly correlated
with age. For this reason, explorations on the cause, early
diagnosis, and treatment of PD must be supported. Stra-
tegic guideline tha t to support basic research, facilitate
free exploration, and play a guiding role may allow the
NSFC to further strengthen its financial support for PD
research, and the field of PD research in China will con-
tinue to grow.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors’ contributions
HC and GC carried out the whole data analysis and drafted the manuscript.
ED revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final
manuscript.
Author details
1
Department of Medical Science, National Natural Science Foundation of
China, Beijing 100085, China.
2
Department of Neurosurgery, The First
Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China.
Received: 17 June 2013 Accepted: 29 August 2013
Published: 30 August 2013
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doi:10.1186/2047-9158-2-18
Cite this article as: Cao et al.: Progress of basic research in Parkinson’s
disease in China: data mini-review from the National Natural Science
Foundation. Translational Neurodegeneration 2013 2:18.
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