The competition, which will award $10 million in total, is funded in large part through a $7.5 million leadership gift from Ken Griffin, Founder and CEO of Citadel. "I am proud to join The Michael J. Fox Foundation in supporting the important research driven by these incredible teams at AC Immune, Mass General Brigham and Merck," said Griffin. "We look forward to their continued progress as we work together to unlock game-changing breakthroughs for the millions of people living with Parkinson's disease."

The three winning projects represent unique and innovative approaches to tracer development:

The three winning teams in the Ken Griffin Alpha-synuclein Imaging Competitionwere awarded a combined $8.5 million dollars. The team that makes the greatest progress during the next two years on an imaging tracer will be awarded an additional $1.5 million to continue work to bring this game-changing tool to fruition.

Foundation's Longstanding Commitment to Find Elusive Tracer in Parkinson's DiseaseThe imaging tracer would be used in a PET scan to visualize alpha-synuclein a protein that clumps in the brains of nearly all 6 million people worldwide who live with Parkinson's. Scientists believe this clumping harms cells and results in symptoms of the disease. Today, these clumps are visible only through post-mortem tissue analysis. This is a foremost challenge in diagnosing the disease and monitoring its progression. The ability to visualize alpha-synuclein in the living brain could accelerate the development of new therapies for Parkinson's and be an important new diagnostic tool for physicians.

"The potential of this tracer is immense. Instead of relying on symptoms to diagnose Parkinson's, physicians could look at what is happening in the brain, in real time, paving the way for earlier diagnosis," explains MJFF CEO Todd Sherer, PhD. "And researchers developing therapies to target alpha-synuclein will be able to see how well their drug is working. An alpha-synuclein imaging tracer would increase the odds of success for therapies in trials today."

The Ken Griffin Alpha-synuclein Imaging Competition builds on MJFF's longstanding support of alpha-synuclein tracer research. In 2011, Jamie Eberling, PhD, vice president of research programs at MJFF, organized a consortium to foster the development of an alpha-synuclein imaging agent, and MJFF has funded this area of research for more than a decade. In 2016, to spur additional development, MJFF announced a $2-million prize for the first team to show clinical evidence of a tracer and make it available to the research community at large. Today, thanks in large part to MJFF and its partners, numerous teams in industry and academia have joined the effort to develop an alpha-synuclein imaging agent.

About The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's ResearchAs the world's largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson's research, The Michael J. Fox Foundation is dedicated to accelerating a cure for Parkinson's disease and improved therapies for those living with the condition today. The Foundation pursues its goals through an aggressively funded, highly targeted research program coupled with active global engagement of scientists, Parkinson's patients, business leaders, clinical trial participants, donors and volunteers. In addition to funding more than $900 million in research to date, the Foundation has fundamentally altered the trajectory of progress toward a cure. Operating at the hub of worldwide Parkinson's research, the Foundation forges groundbreaking collaborations with industry leaders, academic scientists and government research funders; increases the flow of participants into Parkinson's disease clinical trials with its online tool, Fox Trial Finder; promotes Parkinson's awareness through high-profile advocacy, events and outreach; and coordinates the grassroots involvement of thousands of Team Fox members around the world.

For more information, visit us at https://michaeljfox.org.

SOURCE The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

http://www.michaeljfox.org

Here is the original post:
Michael J. Fox Foundation Announces Winners of the "Ken Griffin Alpha-synuclein Imaging Competition" to Develop Game-Changing Tool for...