A layman's guide to Parkinson's disease and its potential cures

I should give a shout-out to John Palfreman's 2015 book "Brain Storms: The Race To Unlock the Mysteries of Parkinson's Disease", which I recently finished.
Perhaps a book on Parkinson's disease is not everyone's idea of pleasant bedtime reading, but Parkinson's is so prevalent these days that almost everyone knows someone with it (in my case, my wife). As the general population continues to age, more and more people will succumb to the disease, so it behooves us all to gen up a little on what is, if not one of the nastier diseases or conditions out there, one of the most ubiquitous.
Palfreman himself is a respected American journalist, not a scientist, and yes, he too has Parkinson's. So, the book is well-written an easy to read, but it is also heart-felt and meticulously researched. He is, after all, facing down his own future, at the mercy of a progressively worsening, and currently still incurable, condition.
Most of the book follows the research into Parkinson's disease chronologically, from James Parkinson's monograph on the "shaking palsy", almost exactly 200 years ago, through the various new discoveries and attempts at treatment over the intervening years, right down to the most up-to-date contemporary understanding of the disease, and the latest avenues being explored in therapeutic treatment and searches for a definitive cure. Showing the hallmarks of a good journalist, Palfreman manages to make compelling stories out of these episodes, introducing interesting case examples as real people with real stories, and describing the various scientific breakthroughs and set-backs almost as gripping elements of an ongoing detective story.
Along the journey, Palfreman explains some of the complex biology and chemistry involved, and he does so in such a manner as to make it digestible and even quite intriguing. Concepts and scientific jargon are introduced gradually so that, towards the end, some quite convoluted scientific descriptions appear quite lucid and comprehensible.
He also makes it clear that, despite decades of promising but ultimately futile discoveries and developments, the detective story is by no means over. The culprit appears, at long last, to have been correctly identified, and his apprehension and defeat may finally be at hand. Even if you have read several books on Parkinson's disease, as we have, the final two chapters of this one make riveting, and refreshingly positive, reading. Without counting premature chickens, the medical promise of a humble phage known as M13 may be the best news in many a year, not only for victims of Parkinson's disease, but also for sufferers from Alzheimer's, Huntington's, ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Yes, it may be too good to be true, and yes, the early promise may sputter and evaporate like so many promising solutions in the past. But 2016 looks like it could be a potentially historic year for those living with Parkinson's. I know I have my fingers crossed.