Jeffery M. Vance , M.D., Ph.D., is the principal investigator of the Udall Center at the Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami (UM). Now in its 16th year, the Center is located in the University’s John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics (HIHG). The Udall center moved in 2007 from Duke University to the UM when three of its principal investigators (Vance, Martin and Scott) moved to UM
. The focus of the center remains the identification of genes and the mechanisms that lead to the development of Parkinson disease (PD). The Morris K. Udall Parkinson Disease Research Center of Excellence Program was established by the 1998 passage of Senate Bill 535. The program was established in honor of the late Arizona congressman, who fought a long battle with PD. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) funds the program to currently nine universities and institutes studying PD. In 1999, a team of researchers led by Dr. Jeffery M. Vance received one of the thirteen Parkinson Disease Research Centers of Excellence awards. An additional five years of funding was awarded in 2004 and then in 2011 by NIH peer-review (NINDS) to present. The HIHG PD research team utilizes state-of-the-art methods in its search to find the genes that may contribute to the cause of PD.
