The Michael J . Fox Foundation for Parkinson ’ s Research
“ Even in the face of the tremendous disruptions of the global pandemic , we have worked to honor your commitment by spending the last 18 months pivoting to maintain momentum in Parkinson ’ s science .”
That sounds so simple , one can risk sounding glib . Even inveterate optimists like the two of us are sober about ending a disease as complex as Parkinson ’ s . Still , seeing the development of the COVID vaccine in record time has only stoked our passion , and , we hope , yours . We are making real progress in understanding Parkinson ’ s disease — and generating tidal waves of data and insights that flow directly into today ’ s drug development pipeline to accelerate new therapies on their path to pharmacy shelves .
Around the globe , thousands of researchers are now our partners in exploring the molecular underpinnings of Parkinson ’ s toxicity with hundreds of teams executing rational strategies for short-circuiting cellular “ bad actors .” They are eager to apply for our funding , download our rigorously characterized data sets , test new agents using our wide and affordable range of preclinical disease models , lift and leverage our published protocols to rapidly stand up new clinical trials , and engage our robust audience of people and families living with Parkinson ’ s .
If we try to put ourselves back where we were when we started , it was impossible to know how far and how fast the Foundation would come . We knew there was unplumbed scientific opportunity , and we were confident in our novel approach to unlock that potential . What ' s clear now is that , in dialogue with the community , we ' ve been able to tap into something new . For 20 years now , we ' ve been listening to researchers ’ and patients ’ needs alike , articulating and envisioning the missing pieces , and then filling the most important gaps .
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