Aims

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We pursue two complementary aims:

To identify potentially modfiable risk factors of Parkinson's disease, in particular environmental toxicants, which could potentially serve as targets for the primary prevention of Parkinson's disease.
To test putative disease-modifying interventions in individuals with prodromal features of Parkinson's disease, to delay the onset of debilitating disease manifestations (secondary prevention).

We scrutinize potentially modifiable environmental risk factors of Parkinson’s Disease as targets for primary prevention, including factors that are also implicated in the etiology of other common chronic diseases. Our work is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary, as illustrated by the Parkinson-PEST study, which we lead jointly with Utrecht University, with key contributions from RIVM and the LUMC, UMCG, and ETZ medical centers. Thanks to the innovative design and scale of our studies, and the involvement of key societal stakeholders, our results have the potential to influence governmental regulation of environmental toxicants, thereby shaping a concrete path toward primary prevention.
We pursue secondary prevention by testing scalable lifestyle interventions, such as the fully remote, randomized-controlled Slow-SPEED trials, which take advantage of digital technology to examine a gamification-enhanced exercise intervention in participants' own home environment. The trials span three countries (Netherlands, UK, USA), building on multiple fruitful collaborations across the field, in particular with Queen Mary University London, University of Rochester and Massachusetts General Hospital. A further extension in Germany and Austria is currently in preparation.