About PPMI

PPMI is a landmark study collaborating with partners around the world to create a robust open-access data set and biosample library to speed scientific breakthroughs and new treatments.

In 2010, The Michael J. Fox Foundation and a core group of academic scientists and industry partners launched the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) toward critically needed biological markers of Parkinson’s onset and progression. PPMI has since engaged thousands of partners — more sites; scientists and clinicians; industry experts; philanthropic partners; and, most importantly, study volunteers — to build a cornerstone of Parkinson’s research. Analysis from its open-access data set and available biosample library has deepened understanding of disease and informed design of dozens of therapeutic trials.

Ten years after it began, PPMI announced a seismic expansion to nearly triple enrollment in the clinic and to add online data capture for tens of thousands. PPMI is continuing its mission to profile biological and clinical changes across the spectrum of disease with an emphasis on signals in at-risk individuals to identify the disease and intervention points as early as possible.