# Biomarkers and Risk Factors for Prodromal Parkinson's Disease and its Progression

> **NIH NS R01** · HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · 2026 · $643,218

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY The highest priority recommended by NINDS for clinical Parkinson’s research is
to define “the features and natural history of prodromal Parkinson disease (PPD), including the events
that underlie phenoconversion to clinically manifest PD, and biomarkers or other determinants of
prodromal subtypes with the goal of providing sufficient rationale to initiate proof-of-concept prevention
trials....” We are in a privileged position to address this priority by leveraging 25 years of research on
PD in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS), large
cohorts of women and men recruited in mid-adult life and followed prospectively for over 30 years. In
2012, we screened the active participants in these cohorts for probable REM sleep behavior disorder
(pRBD) and constipation, and selected a sub-cohort enriched for these features for further investigation
(the ProPD cohort). This sub-cohort included 20,455 individuals who have so far completed two
olfactory tests and two comprehensive mailed surveys of non-motor and early motor features of PPD,
and have been actively followed until 2018. We are now proposing to extend the longitudinal follow-up
of this unique cohort and its source population to monitor the progression of prodromal features and
phenoconversion to clinically manifest PD (“phenoconversion”, for brevity), thus providing important
insights on the course of PPD and fill the gap between current knowledge and what we need to know
for implementing prevention trials. Further, as part of the proposed project, we will examine the impact
of covid-19 on PPD and its progression and collect new biological samples to evaluate the sebum
volatilome and metabolome, novel promising and non-invasive biomarkers that could play an important
role in the early identification of PPD. The Aims of the study include: i) to obtain an in-depth descriptive
characterization of PPD and its heterogeneity; ii) to identify risk factors for PPD

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11317223
- **Project number:** 5R01NS126260-05
- **Recipient organization:** HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
- **Principal Investigator:** ALBERTO  ASCHERIO
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NS
- **Fiscal year:** 2026
- **Award amount:** $643,218
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-04-01T00:00:00 → 2027-03-31T00:00:00

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11317223

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11317223, Biomarkers and Risk Factors for Prodromal Parkinson's Disease and its Progression (5R01NS126260-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-07-13 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11317223. Licensed CC0.

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