Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award to Michael J. Fox: The challenge of Parkinson’s disease

This year's Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award honors the singular achievement of Michael J. Fox, who has devoted much of his life to a philanthropic effort to conquer Parkinson's Disease (PD), a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that afflicts many millions of patients world-wide. Just a few years after his diagnosis of PD at the tender age of 29, Fox pivoted in part from his enormous success in acting [leading roles in the Back to the Future trilogy (1985-1989) and in the hit National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) sitcom Family Ties (1982-1989)] to the creation of the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF). Fox's commitment and integrity have altered the landscape of inquiry into the clinical and basic science of PD and have helped to shape public policies and annually raise private ($400M) and government ($255M) support to find more effective treatments. In the 200 y since PD was first described, and despite recent decades of intense clinical work, only a few therapies have been developed to mitigate some aspects of the movement disorder. These treatments, especially the development of dopamine replacement and agonist drugs and the neurosurgical procedure of deep brain stimulation, have provided decades of limited symptom relief to millions of patients but no enduring therapies that alter the arc of progression of the disease. Now in the 4th decade of his personal battle with PD, Fox and the MJFF stand at the threshold of discoveries and clinical trials that show promise of therapies that go to the root causes of the disease.