Courtesy Regina Leader Post:

It was one of the toughest decisions of Gerald Commissiong’s young life.

But he can take some comfort in knowing that his retirement as a fullback with the Calgary Stampeders could one day play a role in easing the suffering of thousands of Canadians and their families.

Commissiong is going into full-time business with his dad, John, pursuing investment dollars for further testing and research on a form of genetic treatment to help those with Parkinson’s Disease.

About 10,000 Canadians suffer from the effects of the disease, which attacks the central nervous system and can affect motor skills and speech.

“My dad has been working for a long time on some biotech that I really don’t understand all that well,” said Commissiong, who has a degree from Stanford in management science and engineering. “The science part of it is difficult, but I’ve been trying to help him out on the business side, and now it’s come to a point where I had to choose whether I could continue to help him or not. So I’ll help him until he gets some other people involved, and then I can cut back.”

The company, Neurotrophics, was started by his father, a neurophysiologist who has done years of work studying treatments for Parkinson’s.

That work has produced a new form of genetic therapy that, at this point, needs investment dollars and research to push forward as a viable treatment.

“There’s been more than $50 billion spent since the 1960s in trying to treat Parkinson’s, and a lot of it, obviously, was wasted because we still have no real cure for it,” said Commissiong, who will be responsible for securing the investment money. “So we’re trying to put pieces of the puzzle together, and my dad thinks that he has one of the pieces.

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