June 2026 update

In short

Parkinson's research studies continued. This month's update focused mainly on other research areas that grew out of participant reports.

June's update was mostly about a new question: whether FGF-1 might play a part in easing chronic pain. The question grew out of reports from participants, including people with Parkinson's.

What participants reported

By June, the update said, Zhittya had dosed more than 250 people with Parkinson's, plus participants in other studies. Some of them also lived with chronic pain, most often nerve pain in the feet. Between seven and ten participants had reported that their foot pain was less or gone after receiving FGF-1 through the nose.

The update said this had happened too often for the team not to study it.

The chief executive recalled that an earlier attempt, injecting FGF-1 directly into the feet, had not reduced pain. He had first assumed the pain signal began in the brain. A conversation in early June with a participant whose pain was spreading up one leg led him to a different idea: that the nerves running between the foot and the brain might not be working properly. The update called this nerve dysfunction.

What the published research says

The team ran an AI-assisted search of the medical literature. The update said it found hundreds of pages suggesting that, in theory and in animal studies, FGF-1 could reduce pain. It also found that no studies in people had been done to confirm this.

Two early papers were named. In 1991, Sweetnam and colleagues reported that FGF-1 promoted regrowth of damaged nerve fibers in a cut sciatic nerve. In 1996, Cheng, Cao and Olson reported in the journal Science that FGF-1, combined with nerve grafts, bridged complete spinal cord injuries in rats and partly restored hind-leg function.

The update quoted an AI-generated summary on how long nerve repair takes. It said there is no single timeline. Nerve fibers regrow at roughly one millimeter a day, early biological changes can begin within days or weeks, and meaningful recovery of function can take many months or longer.

The summary noted that it rested on animal data and limited human data, that individual results vary widely, and that FGF-1 is still experimental.

That same summary referred to Zhittya's Parkinson's work. It mentioned a functional MRI scan of one participant that showed a 21.2% increase in blood flow to the substantia nigra.

How FGF-1 reaches the brain

The update explained that FGF-1 lasts only a very short time in the bloodstream. Zhittya gives it through the nose so that it can travel along nerves into the fluid around the brain. This route goes around the blood-brain barrier, the lining that keeps many substances in the blood out of the brain.

The team said its recent research suggested FGF-1 travels along nerves better than through the bloodstream. It also said nerves carry many receptors for this family of proteins.

Next steps

The team published its first white paper on pain, written by Dr. Jack Jacobs, Dr. Robert Odell, Viktoriya Tamlenova-Montano and Sergiy Prokofiy Montano. It was preparing a study plan and hoped to begin a research study on chronic pain within 90 days. The update said this might take three separate studies: general chronic pain, spinal cord pain and chronic migraine.

At the time of the update, the study plan was not complete. It had not yet been cleared by an Institutional Review Board, a committee that reviews research involving people.

The chief executive was plain about the uncertainty. "We do not know the answer to this question and that is why it is called discovery," he wrote.

The update also said the team had learned a great deal from participants with Parkinson's, because they tell the researchers things they need to know. It noted that three years of participant comments had been gathered in one place, and it shared new messages, one of them about a returning sense of smell.

The brain imaging study at Washington University in St. Louis was continuing.

This summary covers the Parkinson's research in the June 2026 update. The complete update, including the other topics it covered, is below.