Jeremy Nichols, who has been working as a postdoc in Dario Alessi's lab for the last three and a half years, is departing to take up a Principal Investigator position at The Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, California.

Whilst in the MRC Unit Jeremy undertook rigorous analysis of the regulation and function of the LRRK2 protein kinase that is frequently mutated in patients with Parkinson's disease. Jeremy's work has lead to important tools that enable the analysis of the LRRK2 protein kinase. These include development of optimised peptide substrates such as NICtide that are being used by the pharmaceutical companies to elaborate LRRK2 inhibitors. Jeremy has also identified drugs that inhibit LRRK2 and generated mutants of this enzyme that are insensitive to these drugs. Jeremy has two further exciting studies that are being submitted at the moment and further information will appear on the MRC News page regarding these once they are published.

The Parkinson's Institute is one of the world's only centres that focuses exclusively on basic and clinical research on Parkinson's disease under one roof. This should provide Jeremy with a very stimulating environment to establish his independent research group to continue dissecting the signalling pathways controlled by the LRRK2 protein kinase. Jeremy takes up his position at the Parkinson's Institute in May 2010 and his new email address is jnichols@parkinsonsinstute.org. Jeremy is the tenth Alessi lab member to be appointed as a group leader in an academic establishment.