A cornerstone initiative for progress in Parkinson's disease

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On Oct 15, 2019, the Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP) initiative was launched, with Nobel Laureate Randy Schekman as scientific director. ASAP has the ambitious goal of using its generous philanthropic resources to fund basic research projects to uncover how Parkinson's disease develops and progresses and, ultimately, to discover therapies for its cure. Equipped with substantial funding and an innovative structure aimed at creating an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers, ASAP has the potential to nurture and guide future breakthroughs in Parkinson's disease research. In terms of burden of disease, Parkinson's disease is now the fastest growing neurological condition worldwide. The number of people with Parkinson's disease is projected to grow exponentially as the world's population gets older. This situation starkly highlights not only the need for access to care and medication for patients living with the disease, but also the insufficient funding for the research of new therapies, diagnostics, and the biological mechanisms underlying Parkinson's disease. The arrival of ASAP, created by the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy with support from the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, brings dedicated and substantial funding to this field coupled with a unique vision and plan for all funded projects. Currently, ASAP is accepting pre-proposals of projects until Jan 8, 2020. The initiative favours multidisciplinary research teams intending to address at least one of two scientific themes: the biology of genes associated with Parkinson's disease, and neuro-immune interactions. Teams can request up to US$3 million per year, for a maximum of 3 years. A second round of funding announced for Autumn of 2020 will be open for projects addressing a third theme, “circuitry and brain–body interactions”. ASAP also plans to develop an isogenic stem cell platform and a global Parkinson's genetics programme, in a push for accessible infrastructure support for the wider research community. As a newcomer into the field, it is encouraging to know that ASAP is working with the Michael J Fox Foundation, using their valuable expertise and established grant administration and infrastructure to manage the review process and award funding for selected projects. One of ASAPs main strengths is its strong collaborative aspect. The long-term sharing of ideas and results, and the interactions between disciplines are important aspects of the scientific process that are often hampered by a modern research structure that is usually geared towards individually competitive success. In ASAP, funded groups will share results with each other on a dedicated online platform, allowing researchers from different groups to know of each other's work in real time; and they will also place submitted manuscripts on preprint servers and publish articles with an open access license, following the policies adopted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. However, ASAP's laudable goals of supporting collaboration and democratising data might also be a source of some potential challenges. ASAPs strict eligibility criteria for the make-up of teams—while ensuring collaborative, multicentre, and multidisciplinary teams—might exclude worthy projects and teams even before they can be evaluated by scientific reviewers. Furthermore, the open-data aspect of the Initiative will face the common barriers of other collaborative approaches, such as contending with individual reservations about sharing data, preventing interference from data protection regulations, and ensuring that data are comparable across projects. The requirement of open-access publication for all articles resulting from ASAP funding is commendable and in tune with the overarching theme of the Initiative, but it should not prohibit authors, especially early-career researchers, from publishing in other journals of their choice. Despite the input from patients in the initial planning stages of ASAP, the focus on the physiological origins of Parkinson's disease and the restriction of funding to basic research is likely to preclude proposals aimed at optimising existing therapies or exploring lifestyle changes that might have a more immediate clinical impact. The awareness that potential breakthroughs arising from ASAP will probably not result in clinical improvements anytime soon is a bleak takeaway message for patients living with Parkinson's disease. Nevertheless, basic research into Parkinson's disease is the cornerstone of any future therapy, and ASAP, with its unprecedented scale and scope, must bring a crucial injection of funding and fresh ideas to the field.