Retired nurse Joy realised she could smell her husband's Parkinson's disease. Scientists are using her discovery to learn more about the disease and its diagnosis.
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Find out how Joy first noticed the smell of Parkinson's on her husband Les, and realised that she identified the same smell on other people who had Parkinson's. Scientist Perdita Barran is now investigating that discovery using mass spectrometry, as well as looking into the role of human sebum for diagnosis.
Perdita Barran is Chair of Mass Spectrometry in the Department of Chemistry and Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry which is located in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. She is also Associate Dean for Research Facility Development.
Professor Barran holds a Chair of Mass Spectrometry in the Department of Chemistry, is Associate Dean for Research Facilities and Director of the Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, The University of Manchester, UK.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and was awarded the Theophilus Redwood Award from the RSC in 2019, Researcher of the Year 2020 from the University of Manchester and the ACS Measurement Science Lectureship 2021. In 2020 she initiated the COVID-19 Mass Spectrometry Coalition and was appointed as Chief Advisor to the UK Government on Mass Spectrometry as part of their pandemic response. Perdita has had the privilege to mentor 38 graduate students through the successful completion of their PhD’s. as well as 16 postdoctoral fellows. Perdita has authored over 160 publications in peer reviewed journals which have been cited over 4000 times, by people other than her.
In 2021 Perdita founded the company Sebomix Ltd. to exploit sebum as a diagnostic biofluid with a focus on Parkinson’s Disease.
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