Hi everyone, below is the content of the August Data Community Newsletter we sent out via email on August 1st. Let us know if you didn’t receive it, or if you have topics you’d like to see in future newsletters!
August 2025 Data Community Newsletter
Community Programming
Are you interested in open science but are unsure of how to integrate it into your work? Does your research grant require you to adhere to open science principles? If so, we hope you’ll join our next webinar on Monday, August 11th, 2:00-3:00pm (EDT)! We will be hearing from community members @mattk (23&Me) and @hirotaka (NIH/DTi) as they present their work Open Science Guide: An Online Book for Transparent and Reproducible Data Science Projects in Parkinson’s Disease. Read more and let us know if you’d like to be added to the calendar invite here!
We will also have a webinar on Wednesday, September 3rd, 11:00am-12:00pm (EDT), focusing on a data science pipeline project, an output of the Data Modality and Methodology Task Force. @cameronreidhamilton (Alliance AI) and @vcatterson (BioSymetrics) will be presenting a Python-based pipeline for multimodal data from PPMI, called the Parkinson’s Insight Engine (PIE). Read more and let us know if you’d like to be added to the calendar invite here.
In case you missed our webinar last month, we had the pleasure of hearing from @vcatterson as she presented her team’s work on a phenoclustering analysis of PPMI data for PD subtyping. For more details, check out the thread on Discourse or view the webinar recording.
Funding Opportunities
Sharing information on a funding opportunity from The Neuro (McGill University). Applications are now open for the 2025 Neuro-Irv and Helga Cooper Foundation Open Science Prizes! These international prizes award up to $100,000 annually to individuals and teams advancing open science in neuroscience. Applications and reference letters are due by 12:00pm (EDT), Friday, August 15th.
Do you know of other funding opportunities or programs you’d like to share with the community? Check out our quarterly post where members can share funding opportunities, publications, and/or conference presentations.
Task Force Updates
Our task forces are continuing their work to produce resources for PD researchers. These efforts rely on member contribution and we hope you’ll join one (or more) detailed below:
- Mentorship and Training - Led by: @psaffie & @malosco
- This group will be having its next meeting on Friday, August 8th, where it will continue to design programs and resources to help train the next generation of Parkinson’s disease researchers. If interested in serving as a mentor and/or joining the task force, please reach out to the task force leads or indicate your interest in this thread.
- Data Modality and Methodology - Led by: @ehutchins & @hirotaka
- This task force held its kickoff meeting in July, and is developing a list of new outputs, as well as continuing their work on several projects from last year, including building tools like the Open Science Guide and workflows like the Parkinson’s Insight Engine and imaging processing repository. Do you have a methodology you’d like to publish on, a pipeline or code you’d like to share with the community or get colleague input on? If so, please indicate your interest in joining via the link above.
- Networking and Outreach - Led by: @Vidash & @ecebayram
- This group is tasked with expanding our community over the next year and increasing engagement of existing members. The next group meeting will take place this Thursday, July 31st. Are you interested in helping grow our community while expanding your own network? Join the team via the link above!
- Visual Resource Generation - Led by: @vdardov & @paularp
- Working to produce visual resources that will aid researchers in comprehending the complex topics discussed in our community, this group held their kickoff call last week, and are beginning work on a collection of new webinars, tutorials, and other tools for the community. Do you have a visual resource you’d like to share and/or create with the community? Get involved in the task force thread (linked above)!
Resources and Ongoing Conversations
- @Albert asked about metadata in the Fox Insight PD microbiome data (PDMB) cohort.
- @AnnaliseMiner gave an update on her collaborative project which explores the connection between soccer play, head trauma, and Parkinson’s disease.
- @AmgadDroby is creating a neuroimaging GitHub repo and shared a poll to gauge what community members would like to see included. Give your feedback now!
- @vcatterson gave an overview of how to derive comorbidities from PPMI data for Parkinson’s subtyping.
Welcome New Members!
We encourage you to reach out to our new members and extend a warm welcome to the community! Some of our new members include:
- @ece.kocagoncu (Merck)
- @Albert (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
- @Gabe (Biosymetrics)
- @mtran.dacapobrain (DaCapo Brain Science)
- @javier.diazmejia (Phenomic AI)
That’s it for now – thanks for being members of our growing community. Please feel free to reach out with any questions, we look forward to hearing from you! If you know of colleagues or other researchers who would be interested in joining, feel free to direct them to https://rcop.michaeljfox.org/ where they can set up an account.