A master’s student in biochemistry will get the chance to share what she knows about halting the progress of Parkinson’s disease with a large group of neurologists, pharmaceutical reps and fellow academics when she speaks at a national conference in British Columbia this week.

Krithika Muthukumaran.

Krithika Muthukumaran will deliver a presentation about her studies on the effects of using a water-soluble form of C0Q10 to treat lab mice with Parkinson’s when she speaks at the annual conference of the Natural Health Products Research Society, being held in Kelowna from May 22 to 25.

“This is the first time for me to do something like this, so I’m very excited,” said Muthukumaran, who won a $1,000 Canadian Institutes of Health Research Training Program in Neurodegenerative Lipidomics Travel Award to attend the conference.

She will speak about an experiment in which lab mice modified with genes that increase the susceptibility to the neurodegenerative disorder were treated with Ubisol QE, or a water-soluble formulation of the enzyme COQ10. The treatment halted the degeneration process in those mice that received it, she said.

Muthukumaran studies under the tutelage of professor Siyaram Pandey, who said the conference will provide his student’s work with some excellent exposure.

“It will be the perfect audience for her to get a lot of good feedback,” he said.

Caesar’s Windsor will host the 2013 conference from May 12 to 15.