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For 25 years, The Michael J. Fox Foundation has made it our mission to harness the Parkinson's community's grit and generosity and turn it into tangible progress toward better treatments and cures. People and families living with Parkinson's, academic and industry researchers, treating physicians and allied health professionals, and regulators all have jumped in feet-first to get this job done. I am endlessly grateful for the vast wisdom and energy they have poured into our shared cause. This combined strength is nowhere more evident than in the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI). Fifteen years in, two sets of experts — those who choose to be part of taking down Parkinson's and those who, like me, are here involuntarily — have formed a powerful partnership that is steadily dismantling the secrets of this complex disease. Quite frankly, there's nothing more rock-and-roll than PPMI: out of the gates a pioneering, bold, and astronomically expensive undertaking. “While there is no guarantee that validated biomarkers will result from PPMI,” we wrote in the 2010 press release announcing the study's launch, “their importance to therapeutic progress requires that we accept this risk.” Plenty of voices told us it would never work. Others underestimated the degree of difficulty, like the science reporter who patiently listened to us describing PPMI's ambitious goals, then wrapped up the conversation with a breezy “Call me when you find the biomarker!” That call didn't happen the next day, year, or decade. There were gaps — human-sized gaps — in our understanding of Parkinson's. But while we couldn't be certain when or even if the science would pan out, we were pretty sure we could motivate people with Parkinson's, those at risk, and control volunteers to join our study and be part of the solution they seek. Sure enough, the earliest participants to enroll in PPMI — those first 400 de novo patients and 200 age- and gender-matched controls — would eagerly blaze a path for tens of thousands to come. Scientists now had real-time access to deep, rich, and highly standardized clinical data and precious biosamples from a cohort that would come to span the entire continuum of Parkinson's risk, onset, and progression. Liberated from the challenge of assembling and funding small, ad hoc cohorts, they could turn their full attention to answering longstanding questions about the insidious biology of the human disease. Visit by visit, test by test, study participants helped us build an incredible data set. Researchers avidly leveraged it, with millions of data downloads powering thousands of individual studies worldwide. In addition, in 2023, the Foundation's CEO and co-founder Debi Brooks and founding Board member Nelle Fortenberry came to my home for an urgent meeting. Todd Sherer, chief mission officer, joined us remotely. Together, they shared the news that PPMI had done what it set out to do: validated a test to objectively and accurately detect Parkinson's biology in living people, even years before they had experienced a single symptom of the disease. Outside of milestone life events like my wedding or the births of my children, I'm not sure I have ever been so moved. I remember leaning forward to kiss Todd's forehead on my laptop screen. This was a game-changing moment for the field, not least for patients (myself included) who have had the singularly devastating experience of receiving a bolt-from-the-blue diagnosis and learning that by that point, more than half the dopamine cells in our brains have already been laid waste. The biomarker kicked down the door to a totally different way forward. From detecting Parkinson's before symptoms develop, to testing next-generation drugs against a wide range of biological targets, to the dream of precision medicine and even disease prevention, we are on the threshold of big things. Fueling PPMI on its path are the efforts of our nonprofit and philanthropic partners, scores of biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and hundreds of thousands of individual donors. For 15 years, alongside study volunteers and leadership, this incredible crew has built toward a cure that is now tantalizingly within reach. Their dedication runs deep — just like my gratitude for them. PPMI was once a bold risk. It's now widely recognized as the premier study in Parkinson's, a transformative resource that researchers can leverage to accelerate measurable scientific progress. But the contributions of strength and courage that got us here are impossible to measure. Thanks to the phenomenal Parkinson's community, PPMI is truly the study that is changing everything — and creating unprecedented opportunity for more breakthroughs. So, let's keep rocking and rolling until Parkinson's is only a memory. Michael J. Fox: Writing – original draft; writing – review and editing.