Funding Opportunities

The Michael J. Fox Foundation will do whatever it takes to speed promising Parkinson’s research toward clinical testing and patients. While our strong emphasis is on translational and clinical research, we also fund high-risk/high-reward discovery work to help keep novel approaches flowing into the drug development pipeline. New funding initiatives are announced throughout the year. Sign up to receive e-mail alerts whenever a new program is announced.

View slides from the Nov. 1, 2011 Webinar, “Research Strategy and Funding Opportunities.”

Pipeline Programs

Pipeline Programs fund investigator-initiated proposals focused on the following critical points along the translational pathway to new therapies for Parkinson’s disease: Testing Novel Hypotheses (high-risk, high-reward projects with little to no existing preliminary data, but potential to significantly impact our understanding or treatment of PD); Validating Novel Targets (work demonstrating whether modulation of a novel biological target has impact in a PD-relevant pre-clinical model); Catalyzing and Expanding Preclinical Development (industry-exclusive support for preclinical development of Parkinson’s disease therapies with potential to fundamentally alter disease course and/or improve treatment of symptoms above and beyond current standards of care); and Clinically Testing Novel Therapies (clinical testing of promising PD therapies that may significantly and fundamentally improve treatment of PD).
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MJFF Priority Areas

MJFF is prioritizing work along several key areas as part of its mission to accelerate the development of new and improved treatments for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Each priority area is chosen based on its relevance for addressing broader goals necessary for PD therapeutic development and allows a more proactive ability to strategically deploy MJFF resources and expertise. MJFF’s 2012 Priority Areas include: defining PD and its progression (Biomarkers), reducing the unmet symptoms of PD and side effects of existing treatments (PD Cognition, Dyskinesias), altering PD progression (LRRK2, Alpha-Synuclein, Neurotrophic Factors).
New Deadlines Just Announced
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MJFF Resources

The Michael J Fox Foundation has supported several pre-clinical and clinical efforts that have generated or facilitated access to valuable biospecimen collections for the research community. MJFF would like to expand these efforts and provide an opportunity for researchers to apply to utilize these resources in order to improve our understanding of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Funding opportunities are available for resources that include tissue from Parkinson’s rodent models, human biospecimens and associated clinical data from current and previous clinical studies and trials, and human post-mortem tissue from a brain and whole-body donation program.
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For more information on how we allocate funds to benefit people living with PD, see The MJFF Funding Philosophy. To read about grants previously awarded under any of these programs, use our Searchable Database of Funded Grants. Our driving goal is to fund the right science at the right time to advance progress toward improved PD treatments. If, after reading through the materials available here and elsewhere on our site, you are unsure of which program would best fit your project, please contact our Scientific Staff.

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