Objective:
The Targets to Therapies Program seeks to build a robust evidence base for endolysosomal targets with high potential relevance to Parkinson’s disease. Funding will support projects to clarify human relevance, define mechanism in Parkinson's-relevant contexts, establish target engagement, or develop enabling tools and assays.
The Targets to Therapies Program supports:
- Target modulation in cell and animal models to determine efficacy on PD phenotypes
- Generate evidence linking target biology to PD patient samples
- Clarifying the therapeutic mechanism of action
- Identify and test biomarkers to aid preclinical therapeutic validation and patient stratification
- Biological safety through animal model characterization
When considering proposals submitted to this program, MJFF prioritizes those that:
- Directly address known target gaps (e.g., human modulation, biomarker linkage, mechanism in α-syn biology and related PD pathology)
- Generate reproducible, translatable data that advances the target toward a therapeutic decision point
For this round, MJFF will not consider proposals focused on the following:
- Broad discovery without a defined target/mechanism
- Therapeutic development programs not directly tied to target validation
Please note that MJFF has an Open Science Policy which governs research outputs (such as preprints, journal articles, data, code, and software) resulting from MJFF-funded work. The Open Science Policy applies to this funding program and includes specific rules, timing, and format for the return of those research outputs and requires them to be shared openly, to be free to access, and with persistent identifiers. Please contact openscience@michaeljfox.org for questions about the Open Science Policy.