Barker Group

Roger Barker

Professor Roger Barker

Parkinson's and Huntington's disease

Email: rab46@cam.ac.uk     |     Departmental Affiliation: Clinical Neurosciences　

Laboratory: John van Geest Centre for Brain Repair, Cambridge Biomedical Campus

www.thebarkerwilliamsgraylab.co.uk/　

Research

Plain English: The Barker Group primarily focuses on neurodegenerative disorders of the brain such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD). They seek to better define the true extent of clinical deficits in these disorders with the aim of building a more complete model of disease heterogeneity and its basis which will then serve to inform on new therapies. This includes the translation of stem cell therapies to clinics by targeting the right sub-group of patients at the optimal stage of disease as well as other treatments such as drug repurposing- e.g. felodipine in HD.　

Research Focus: The Barker Group's main interests revolve around two relatively common, chronic neurodegenerative disorders of the nervous system - Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD). They are interested in better understanding how these diseases develop and then how they change over time with the idea of better classifying patients into different subtypes of disease. These subtypes can then be used to test new therapies as some types of these diseases may be better suited for one type of experimental treatment whilst others may not: e.g. dopamine cell therapies from stem cells treatment may be better suited to younger PD patients with a more benign clinical course.

The Barker Group is trying to better understand the brain pathology in these diseases through snRNA sequencing and post mortem tissue analysis in collaboration with Annelies Quaegebeur in Cambridge and Johan Jakobsson in Lund. They are looking to develop new treatments for PD and HD and are currently undertaking a drug repurposing trial in HD (FELL-HD) and a stem cell trial in PD (STEM-PD) with Lund University.

The lab also works with others to better understand normal development using human fetal samples. This has contributed to the human cell atlas as well as the development of new technologies and in particular this work has furthered our understanding of how the cells of the brain arise and organise themselves into structures, which has also helped better define cell types for transplantation.

Barker research image of dopaminergic neurons

Dopaminergic neurons differentiated from embryonic stem cells using a clinical grade protocol and reagents—Tyrosine Hydroxylase (green), Beta III tubulin (red)

　

Barker Group photo 

　

Key Publications