In collaboration with Dr. Maria Spillantini and Dr. Michel Goedert, in 1997 John harnessed the CNDR brain bank to probe sporadic human brain PD and DLB tissues for α-synuclein immunoreactivity and found Lewy bodies in both disorders to contain α-synuclein (2), which has led to our current understanding of both disorders as α-synucleinopathies. The gene discussed is SNCA; the disease is synucleinopathy.