Parkinson's - Michael J. Fox Foundation Funding Opportunities Spring 2015 ($ 250,000)

The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) asks for applications for its Target Validation Program and its Therapeutic Pipeline Program, both part of the annual Edmond J. Safra Core Programs for PD Research. The closing date to submit pre-proposals is October 29, 2014. Both programmes are part of the Spring 2015 Review Cycle. It is anticipated that awards are announced in March 2015.

The Target Validation Program supports two-year grants up to $ 250,000. The program supports work seeking to determine whether manipulation of a defined biological target provides a disease-relevant beneficial outcome in a whole animal, mammalian model of PD. MJFF does not have any pre-conceived preferences for particular targets submitted to the Target Validation program. The Therapeutic Pipeline Program has no set budget limit for proposals and applicants may request up to two years of funding for preclinical development or up to three years of funding for clinical development. The program supports PD therapeutic development along the entire preclinical and clinical path.

Applications are accepted anytime (no deadlines) for the following programs: Rapid Response Innovation Awards, Dyskinesia Challenge 2014, LRRK2 Challenge 2014 and the Neurotrophic Factors Challenge 2014. Next deadlines for Access Data & Biospecimens is August 11, 2014.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation works tirelessly to accelerate promising research toward clinical testing and breakthroughs for Parkinson’s patients. The strong emphasis of the Foundation is on funding translational and clinical research. It also supports high-risk/high-reward discovery work to help keep new ideas flowing into the drug development pipeline.