PADs for Parkinson’s moves onto its next chapter

Contributed photo

One of San Juan Island’s most pop­u­lar non­prof­its shares news about its future.

PADs for Parkinson’s, the first pro­gram any­where to train dogs for the detec­tion of an odor asso­ci­at­ed with Parkinson’s Dis­ease, is excit­ed to announce that in June 2023, the pro­gram will move to its new home at Nosais, a non­prof­it research depart­ment with­in the Nation­al Vet­eri­nary School of Mai­son-Alfort, France. Estab­lished in 1775, and encom­pass­ing 11 acres, NEVA is the French pub­lic research insti­tute of sci­en­tif­ic research and high­er edu­ca­tion for vet­eri­nary med­i­cine with 1,000 aspir­ing vet­eri­nary stu­dents, a teach­ing staff of 400 vet­eri­nary sci­ence spe­cial­ists, and eight research lab­o­ra­to­ries. Here, PADs will final­ly have the need­ed room to stretch, run and expand to its full potential.

Since 2016, PADs has been raised, fos­tered and groomed on San Juan Island. Dur­ing these past sev­en years, and only with the tremen­dous sup­port­ing efforts of over fifty local vol­un­teers, hun­dreds of sam­ple donors, 35 ded­i­cat­ed and pas­sion­ate canine/handler teams, and a giv­ing, car­ing com­mu­ni­ty, PADs has ful­filled its three-fold mis­sion of train­ing dogs to detect an odor asso­ci­at­ed with Parkinson’s Dis­ease, estab­lish repro­ducible train­ing pro­to­col, and assist research sci­ence in the quest for the cause and cure for Parkinson’s Disease.

Now for the ben­e­fit of the mil­lions of peo­ple world­wide fac­ing Parkinson’s Dis­ease, it is time for PADs to pub­lish the find­ing of its many years of care­ful­ly col­lect­ed canine detec­tion research, and then for­mal­ize and encour­age efforts for this research to go for­ward at Alfort. It is planned that begin­ning in June, the PADs pro­gram will be under the direc­tion of long­time NEVA Pro­fes­sor Dominique Grand­jean, DVM. Pro­fes­sor Grand­jean direct­ed the first pro­gram to pub­lish proof of canine detec­tion of Covid-19 and has pub­lished numer­ous sci­en­tif­ic papers in the grow­ing new field of med­ical canine detection.

“The Nosaïs team of the Nation­al Vet­eri­nary School of Alfort is hon­ored and excit­ed to con­tin­ue build­ing upon the ground-break­ing detec­tion research already estab­lished by PADs,” Pro­fes­sor Grand­jean says. “We will con­tin­ue the work and put forth all our efforts into pro­vid­ing the new pos­si­bil­i­ty of ear­ly detec­tion of Parkinson’s Dis­ease through canine olfac­to­ry detec­tion, thanks to the mar­velous pio­neer­ing work done by PADs.”

At this time, we wish to grate­ful­ly acknowl­edge the tremen­dous effort and giv­ing spir­it of the many hands and hearts of the San Juan Island Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion, the numer­ous island vol­un­teers, and the many indi­vid­u­als who have sup­port­ed and helped to raise PADs to a lev­el of inter­na­tion­al inter­est and accep­tance. Addi­tion­al­ly, as we turn the page to the next chap­ter, we extend our very deep grat­i­tude to the PADs sam­ple donors and sup­port­ers who are bat­tling Parkin­son’s Dis­ease. You remain the inspi­ra­tion for the work we do — and the work to come.

On behalf of the entire PADs team, we remain grate­ful and hon­ored to be a thread in the fab­ric of an orga­ni­za­tion that con­tin­ues to work for human health, here and across the Atlantic.

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