Alfred Dollwet Foundation supports research at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

€5,000 for a research project of the Institute of Pathobiochemistry at the Mainz University Medical Center to investigate new ways of preventing Parkinson's disease

06.07.2010

The Alfred Dollwet Foundation Mainz supports the purchase of a measuring instrument for a research project at the Institute of Pathobiochemistry at the Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz with a €5,000 donation. The research project is headed by Professor Dr. Christian Behl, Director of the Institute, who is looking for new ways to prevent Parkinson's disease and focuses on using new antioxidants to prevent the oxidation of sensitive molecules in threatened cells. "An oxygen electrode will facilitate an accurate analysis of the efficiency of the use of these antioxidants. This allows us to characterize nerve-cell-protecting substances in more detail and to prepare their use in appropriate animal models," explains Professor Dr. Christian Behl while receiving the donation. "Therefore, we are grateful for the very generous donation of the Alfred Dollwet Foundation in Mainz that facilitated the purchase of this new measuring instrument." University Chancellor Götz Scholz adds: "This private commitment of our sponsors and founders provides an essential contribution that allows our university to conduct research and teaching at the highest level. We cordially thank the board of the Alfred Dollwet Foundation in Mainz for this generous donation."

The Alfred Dollwet Foundation in Mainz was created in 2007 by the late Gisela Dollwet. The husband of the founder, after whom the foundation was named, had a wide range of interests with a special focus on brain research. Supporting science and research in the field of brain research at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz as well as at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main is therefore the purpose of the foundation. "Founder Gisela Dollwet has stipulated that the first payout of the foundation should benefit Mainz University because she felt very attached to this institution," explains Frank Lohmüller, the foundation's chairman. "We are particularly pleased that we can now implement this wish and support the research project of Professor Dr. Christian Behl at the Institute of Pathobiochemistry at the Mainz University Medical Center with our donation."

Further information concerning the project

The work group of Professor Dr. Christian Behl has spent several years working on anti-oxidant and nerve-cell-protecting molecules and has described the phenothiazine molecule group as very powerful anti-oxidants in a series of publications. Detailed analysis of the phenothiazines is now being performed in cooperation with the work group of Assistant Professor Dr. Bernd Moosmann to determine the exact mode of operation in the mitochondria, organelles that are particularly important for nerve cells. The mitochondria in the human cell, also known as the power plants of the cell, are the central production place of cellular energy. There, the energy sourrce ATP is produced with the aid of oxygen. An oxygen electrode is to be used to determine to what extent the nerve-protective phenothiazines influence the oxygen consumption in mitochondria.