WPC Research Spotlight #5

Event Notes:

Prevention and Parkinson’s disease: From Population Studies to Precision Medicine

Researcher: Caroline M. Tanner, MD, PhD, FAAN,FANA, received her MD degree from Loyola University and trained in neurology and movement disorders at Rush University in Chicago. She received her PhD in environmental health sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently  the Roger Evans and Aey Phanachet Professor in Parkinson’s Disease and Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the Department of Neurology at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco. She previously was Director of Clinical Research at the Parkinson’s Institute.

Dr. Tanner’s clinical practice specializes in movement disorders. Her research interests include descriptive epidemiology, environmental and genetic determinants, biomarkers, early detection, nonmotor disease features and clinical trials for all stages of disease. She has a long-standing commitment to Veterans health, beginning with a study in World War II Veteran twins and formerly directed the Parkinson’s Disease Research Education and Clinical Center at the San Francisco VA Medical. Dr. Tanner and her colleagues have identified associations between toxicant exposures including certain pesticides, solvents and persistent environmental pollutants and increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, and identified gene-environment interactions. She is a founding member and past co-Chair of the Parkinson Study Group and has participated in numerous clinical trials over nearly 4 decades. Most recently, she is co-principal investigator of the  innovative Trial of Parkinson’s and Zolendronate (TOPAZ ), a completely home-based study focused on fracture prevention in people with Parkinson’s disease. She is co-PI of a trial of rifaximin to reduce “off” periods, site PI for trials of physical activity and of prasinezumab and co-investigator of a trial of psilocybin for depression in people with PD. Her current work also includes serving as the principal investigator of the Fox Insight online study and as a member of the leadership team of the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) study, serving as lead investigator for PPMI Online. The long term focus of all of this work is stopping or slowing progression and ultimately preventing Parkinson’s disease. She has been privileged to learn from the experiences of people with Parkinson’s disease and their loved ones, and honored to partner with many in the research mission. She has been fortunate to serve as a mentor to talented students from many countries, who themselves are now leading researchers and educators worldwide.

Her honors include the University of California, Berkeley Alumni of the Year Award for Excellence in Achievement (2008), American Academy of Neurology Movement Disorders Research Award (2012), the White House Champions of Change for Parkinson’s (2015), International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society Honorary Member (2020), the Tom Isaacs Award – Cure Parkinson’s Trust  & Van Andel Institute (2020), the Robert A. Pritzker Prize – Michael J Fox Foundation (2020), the Advocacy Award – Parkinson’s Policy Forum (2021), the Robert A. Wartenberg lectureship – American Academy of Neurology (2021), the Stanley Fahn Lecture Award – International Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Society (2023) and the International Association of Parkinsonism and Related Disorders Melvin Yahr Award Lecture (2025).