A blog post by DPAG's Katherine Brimblecombe medium.com/@kbrimbs/why...

Why is finding new medicines for Parkinson’s so slow?

A breakdown of current strategies to identify new medicines to treat Parkinson’s from the perspective of a research scientist.

medium.com

Our team had a fantastic time at the 2026 CRN Annual Investigators Meeting in Barcelona! It was inspiring to hear the bold ideas shaping the future of Parkinson's disease research and connect with both new and returning CRN Fellows. It remind us what we can achieve when we work together!

📣 New preprint alert 📣 A new study from Cragg Lab uncovers an unexpected off-target mechanism of a widely used serotonin 5-HT4 receptor agonist, with potential therapeutic implications for neurological disorders. Congratulations to Qinbo Qiao for leading this fantastic work! #serotonin #dopamine

5-HT4 receptor ligand RS67333 modulates striatal acetylcholine and dopamine release via inhibition of acetylcholinesterase

Serotonin 5-HT4 receptors (5-HT4Rs) have emerged as potential therapeutic targets in neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders by modulating circuits that shape mood, cognition, and motor funct...

biorxiv.org

Congratulations to Dr. Kathryn Todd on being selected as an ASAP CRN Discovery Fellow! Her project will investigate how vulnerable versus resistant dopamine neurons are regulated in Parkinson’s disease. Read more ⬇️ @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org @oxforddpag.bsky.social

Inaugural Cohort of Discovery Fellows Aim to Become the Next Generation of Parkinson’s Research

ASAP's Protocols page supports open science by sharing experimental methods that make funded research replicable and useful to the broader scientific community.

parkinsonsroadmap.org

Project Manager role at the University of Oxford coordinating an international Parkinson’s research consortium on sleep, circadian rhythms and open science. Closing date: 29th May www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/job/project-...

Project Manager: Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s

University of Oxford seeks a Project Manager to coordinate an ASAP funded Parkinson’s consortium on sleep, circadian rhythms and open science.

dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk

Congratulations to Pete Magill, one of our ASAP core-PIs, on his appointment as a founding Group Leader at the new UK DRI Parkinson’s Research Centre. A fantastic step forward for #parkinsons research! Read more: www.ukdri.ac.uk/news-and-eve... @ukdri.ac.uk @rnd.ac.uk

First Group Leaders announced for new dedicated Parkinson's Research Centre

In 2025, the UK DRI partnered with Parkinson’s UK to

ukdri.ac.uk

📣 New publication alert 📣 Check out the exciting work from Howe Lab published in @nature.com exploring how #dopamine supports goal-directed navigation in mice! Huge congratulations to Eleanor Brown, Mai-Anh Vu, and Safa Bouabid for leading this work!

Striatum-wide dopamine encodes trajectory errors separated from value - Nature

Cue-evoked striatal dopamine release in mice encodes bidirectional trajectory errors, spatially and temporally separated from value coding, reflecting the relationship between the speed and direc...

nature.com

🎉Exciting week for our ASAP Team Cragg at the 2026 GRC Basal Ganglia in beautiful Tuscany 🎉 We are proud that four of our PIs, Steph Cragg, Mark Howe, Dinos Meletis, and Yulong Li, are presenting talks in neural circuit function and dysfunction. Looking forward to a great meeting!

📣 New preprint alert 📣 A collaborative study from the Howe and Cragg labs reveals an anatomical hotspot in the striatum where #dopamine and #acetylcholine interact to shape learning and movement. Congratulations to Safa Bouabid and Mai-Anh Vu for leading this work! #openscience #collaboration

🎉 The Meletis lab is hiring 🎉 Are you interested in neuron subtypes and motivated behaviour? Join us as a fully funded PhD student at Karolinska Institutet. 📅 Application deadline: February 10 More details ⬇️ @ki.se @meletis.bsky.social #basalganglia #phd #neuroscience

Doctoral position in Systems Neuroscience

Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research? To be a doctoral student means to devote oneself to a research project under supervision of experienced researchers and following an individu

kidoktorand.varbi.com

Meet Linda Kaupp, a visiting Master student coming from the Karolinska Instituet! She will be conducting her master's thesis at the Cragg Lab on the interaction between astrocytes, cholinergic interneurons and dopaminergic neurons. #MeetOurTeam @oxforddpag.bsky.social @stephcragg.bsky.social

At #SfN25 in San Diego this week? #Adenosine fans, this one is for you! Catch Dr. Kathryn Todd at MIN40 | Room 6CR on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST! Want more? Dive deeper with the must-read review by the full group of speakers and chairs! @stephcragg.bsky.social

Adenosine in the Brain: Recent Progress on Detection, Function, and Translation

Although adenosine was identified in the brain many decades ago, our understanding of when, where, and how it functions has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven in part by innovative technological...

jneurosci.org

It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of Dr. Richard Exley. Richard was Steph Cragg's first postdoc, who is remembered as a brilliant scientist and a joyful colleague. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this difficult time, and may his memory continue to inspire us all.

Welcome to the team, Mara Wuelfing! Mara is completing her Biochemistry Part II Project in the Cragg Lab, where she will be investigating the source of tonic adenosine in the nucleus accumbens under the supervision of Kat Todd, an ASAP-funded postdoc. #MeetOurTeam

Welcome to the team, Katherine Wang and Isabella Wijsmann! Katherine joins as an MRC-funded Research Assistant and Isabella as a DPhil student at Cragg Lab, where they will be working on how novel glycine receptors shape #dopamine and #acetylcholine signalling in health and #PD. #MeetOurTeam

🎉Congratulations Dr. Qinbo Qiao of the Cragg lab! 🎉 Your hard work has paid off, and Team Cragg is so proud of you. We can't wait to see where life takes you, and good luck at your new position in Shanghai! @stephcragg.bsky.social @oxforddpag.bsky.social

We were thrilled to (mostly) meet in-person last week for the 3rd Annual Symposium of ASAP Collaboration for Team Cragg! Thank you all for an inspiring meeting of science, sharing and #collaboration. We have built a great momentum, and we are ready for new discoveries in #Parkinsons research!

📣 New preprint alert 📣 A new collaborative study from @meletis.bsky.social and @jakobssonasap.bsky.social on mapping the molecular changes in the mouse and human striatum in #Parkinsons! Congratulations to Marta Graziano and Ioannis Mantas for spearheading this fantastic work! #OpenScience

A molecular atlas of cell-type specific signatures in the parkinsonian striatum.

The progressive degeneration of dopaminergic projections to the striatum is a key disease mechanism in Parkinson's disease (PD). To define the cellular landscape in the parkinsonian striatum, we mappe...

biorxiv.org

Dinos Meletis@meletis.bsky.social · 12mo ago

very exciting to share the result of a collaborative effort to map the molecular changes in the mouse and human striatum in Parkinson’s, revealing new biological targets and vulnerability of specific cell types with disease progression

Meet Tony Barbay, our new MRC-funded Postdoctoral Researcher at Cragg Lab! He will explore the role of astrocytes as neuromodulators in the striatum in health and PD. We look forward to working with you! Learn more: www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/tony-ba... #Parkinsons #astrocytes #The_MRC #MeetOurTeam

Tony Barbay

PhD Tony Barbay - Postdoctoral Research Scientist

dpag.ox.ac.uk

📣The Wade-Martins Lab is hiring 📣 Are you interested in developing novel biomarkers and testing therapeutic compounds using iPSC-derived dopamine neurons from PD patients? Join us as a Research Assistant at the University of Oxford. Deadline is noon (UK time) on Sept 5th! bit.ly/4lURYW9

Wade-Martins Lab, University of Oxford@wademartinslab.bsky.social · last yr.

📣Job opportunity: We are seeking a Research Assistant neuronal cell biologist to join the lab @kavlioxford.bsky.social within @oxforddpag.bsky.social. You will be working on a translational research project investigating lysosomal dysfunction in #Parkinson’s disease. Job Details: bit.ly/4lURYW9

We're kicking off our new series: Initiative Spotlight 🔦 starting with Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP)! @asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org aims to speed discovery and drive progress toward a #ParkinsonsDisease cure through collaboration and open science. Learn more: bit.ly/3Ys7sIo

In case you missed it, be sure to watch July's instalment of the Discover ASAP! Ricardo Márquez Gómez from Wade-Martins Lab discussed their scalable microfluidic platform that enables the study of human neuron microcircuitry, connectivity, and regeneration in vitro 🔬 #OpenScience #PD #iPSCs

Aligning Science Across Parkinson's@asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org · last yr.

This month’s Discover ASAP features Ricardo Márquez Gómez of @craggasap.bsky.social, discussing a fluid-wall microfluidic platform to model human corticostriatal circuits 🧪 This platform enables axon studies, long-term culture, & scalable testing for #Parkinsons. 📺 youtu.be/dutY_mxext4

Fantastic work spearheaded by @safabouabid.bsky.social from Mark Howe Lab!

Aligning Science Across Parkinson's@asapresearch.parkinsonsroadmap.org · last yr.

CRN Team Cragg used array photometry in mice to reveal a topography of opposing changes in ACh release across distinct striatal regions. Reward prediction error encoding was localized to specific phases of ACh dynamics in anterior dorsal striatum. 🔗 Read the full #publication: bit.ly/3JjqQCE

Check out Katherine Brimblecombe's news article on outreach activities! Katherine reflects on how her outreach work with primary school kids has led to changes in the way she thinks about science communication. #SciComm #ScienceOutreach #WomenInSTEM #STEM

Outreach: How Science Week's 2025 theme made me reflect on how I talk about science (by Dr Katherine Brimblecombe)

Science week 2025 theme: Change and adapt

dpag.ox.ac.uk

📣 New publication alert 📣 Check out our collaborative review on axonal molecular and circuit mechanisms governing dopamine exocytosis in health and PD. Congratulations to Kathryn Todd from Cragg Lab and Kaitlyn Cramb from Wade-Martins Lab for spearheading this publication!

New insights into axonal regulators of dopamine transmission in health and disease

Dopamine release in the striatum is credited with being critical to the selection and learning of motivated actions and outcomes. Dysregulation of str…

sciencedirect.com

Are you at the ISN-ASN Meeting held in New York this week? Don't miss out the talk from our very own Steph Cragg this Friday from 3 to 5 pm EDT! The "Flowing Neurochemicals in the Brain" symposium is being chaired by CRN members Yulong Li and Lin Tian.

📣 A new book announcement 📣 The Handbook of #dopamine, from Steph Cragg (@stephcragg.bsky.social) and Mark Walton, and a cover illustration from the talented Lucille Duquenoy from Cragg Lab, is available to pre-order now!

OxfordDPAG@oxforddpag.bsky.social · last yr.

We have an exciting new book to announce! www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/news/oxford-...

Congratulations to Shinil Raina, who left her position as a RA in the Cragg Lab to take up an MRC iCase funded DPhil position in the Yeo lab at University of Cambridge. We will miss you dearly and wish you the best of luck on your endeavours! Who will win the best poster awards for our team now?

A new #MRC CoRE will focus on developing brain stimulation devices to treat conditions such as Parkinson’s, dementia, stroke and childhood epilepsy. 🎉Many congratulations to our co-PI, Professor Peter Magill, who will be the Director of the MRC CoRE in Restorative Neural Dynamics! 🎉

Oxford to lead new £50m MRC Centre to develop brain stimulation

A new Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence (MRC CoRE) aims to develop brain stimulation devices to treat conditions such as Parkinson’s, dementia, stroke and childhood epilepsy.

ox.ac.uk

Team Cragg was out in full-force at the 2025 Oxford Parkinson's Research Day hosted by OPDC earlier this month! 📣 Shoutout to our presenters, Kaitlyn Cramb, Katherine Brimblecombe, Ollie Curry, Rasha Elghaba, and Camille Loiseau, for sharing their fantastic work with the PD community! 📣

@OxfordPDCentre@oxfordpdcentre.bsky.social · last yr.

OPDC hosts the 2025 Oxford Parkinson’s Research Day @kavlioxford.bsky.social dpag.ox.ac.uk/news/oxford-... @oxforddpag.bsky.social @dpagathenaswan.bsky.social @oxneuro.bsky.social @dunnschool.bsky.social @ndcnoxford.bsky.social @mrcbndu.ox.ac.uk