Marisa Wexler, MS, senior science writer —

Marisa holds a Master of Science in cellular and molecular pathology from the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied novel genetic drivers of ovarian cancer. Her areas of expertise include cancer biology, immunology, and genetics, and she has worked as a science writing and communications intern for the Genetics Society of America.

Articles by Marisa Wexler

FDA Puts IkT-148009 Parkinson’s Clinical Trial on Hold

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has put a hold on clinical trials of IkT-148009, an experimental oral therapy that Inhibikase Therapeutics is developing for Parkinson’s disease and other related and non-related conditions. The hold comes just a few months after Inhibikase started dosing Parkinson’s patients…

NE3107 Plus Levodopa Leads to Better Motor Gains: Phase 2 Trial

BioVie’s investigational oral therapy NE3107, taken in combination with standard levodopa, eases motor symptoms more substantially than levodopa alone in people with Parkinson’s disease, according to top-line results of a Phase 2 clinical trial. “NE3107 shows promise, and if the current findings are confirmed, it may represent one…

Home Health Visits Plus Peer Mentors May Ease Caregiver Strain

Pairing at-home healthcare visits with peer mentoring may help to prevent the strain of caregiving from worsening over time among people caring for homebound loved ones with advanced Parkinson’s disease, a study reported. “As the volume of family caregivers exponentially increases, peer mentoring — already a successful model in…

New Vaccine for Parkinson’s Moves Closer to 1st Human Trials

An experimental vaccine that stimulates immune responses against three regions of the alpha-synuclein protein — whose toxic clumps contribute to Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) — is moving into late-stage preclinical research aimed at supporting future requests to test it in clinical trials. Called PV-1950R,…

Using AI to Analyze Gait May Help Diagnose Parkinson’s Disease

New machine learning models based on walking patterns accurately distinguished between Parkinson’s patients and healthy people, and between different stages of the disease, a study showed. “We chose gait parameters as the key criteria because gait impairments appear early in Parkinson’s and get worse over time, and also because…

Repetitive Genetic Variations Tied to Parkinson’s Risk in Study

Variations in small, repetitive DNA sequences called short tandem repeats (STRs) are associated with an altered risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, a new study reports. “We demonstrate for the first time that these complex repeat regions in fact influence a person’s risk of disease and chip away at understanding…

Elements in ‘Dark Genome’ Tied to Disease Progression Differences

Transposable elements, a common feature in the so-called “dark genome,” are associated with clinical differences in how Parkinson’s disease progresses among different people, a new study indicates. “Our main finding is that the presence or absence of [transposable elements] changes progression trajectory of [Parkinson’s], and we provided clinical, imaging,…