January 2026 Data Community Newsletter

Community Updates
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Hi everyone, below is the content of the January Data Community Newsletter we sent out via email on January 12th. Let us know if you didn’t receive it, or if you have topics you’d like to see in future newsletters!

January 2026 Data Community Newsletter

During 2025…

  • Our community grew from 156 to 304 members!
  • More than 193 discussion threads were started, generating over 740 replies.
  • We held 9 community webinars on topics including:
    • Open-source PD software
    • Data access, analysis, and curation
    • Networking in scientific careers
    • Preparing and presenting talks and posters

Thank you again for contributing to our efforts to design and build a space that serves the needs of the Parkinson’s research community! We are excited to continue working together in 2026 to expand the community’s reach and support those who are working to find a cure to Parkinson’s.

Training Grants: Deadline Extended!

The Mentorship and Training Task Force is soliciting proposals to support training and integrated learning initiatives. Two proposals for $3,750 each (direct costs) will be awarded. This funding mechanism is intended to support early career stage investigators conducting multidisciplinary research on Parkinson’s disease using MJFF data sets including but not limited to those found here. To learn more or submit your application, check out the thread here. Please note: the application deadline has been extended to March 2nd, 2026.

Upcoming Community Programming

We have three webinars coming up in the next month. Read below to learn more, we hope you can join one (or all) of them!

Do you work with admixed population data in your research? Are you interested in how genetic admixture shapes the way Parkinson’s is investigated and understood? If so, we hope you join us for our next webinar on Thursday, January 15th, 12:00-1:00pm (ET) as Dr. Thiago Peixoto Leal (Cleveland Clinic) shares his experiences working with LARGE-PD, and will present new results that have not been shared before, highlighting the importance of including diverse populations in genomic studies. Let us know in this thread if you would like to attend, and we’ll share the calendar invite!

Have you ever wondered about the link between sports, head trauma, and Parkinson’s? Do you (or are you interested in) working with Fox Insight data in your Parkinson’s disease research? If so, join us for a community webinar on Friday, January 23rd, 11am-12pm (ET), as we hear from PhD candidate Annie Miner and Dr. Michael Alosco on their current research at Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. If you’d like to attend, indicate your interest in this Discourse thread!

Are you investigating Parkinson’s disease biomarkers in your research? Are you interested in methods which might allow for earlier diagnoses? Join us on Tuesday, February 10th, 11am-12pm (ET), as we hear about the current research of Dr. Amgad Droby (Assistant Professor, Tel Aviv Sourask Medical Center), and learn how neuroimaging techniques are being developed and leveraged to assist in biomarker detection and validation for earlier disease diagnosis and risk stratification. If you’d like to attend, let us know in this thread!

Resources and Ongoing Conversations

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:

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.