Interestingly, treatment with erythropoietin, a hormone that promotes the formation of red blood cells, elicited neuroprotective effects in preclinical models of PD (Farmer et al., 2015; Jang et al., 2016; Carelli et al., 2017) and clinical trials demonstrated its safety, tolerability and efficacy in PD patients (Pedroso et al., 2012; Jang et al., 2014). The gene discussed is EPO; the disease is Parkinson disease.