Hi everyone! Below is the content of the March Data Community Newsletter we sent out via email on March 4. Let us know if you didn’t receive it, or if you have topics you’d like to see in future newsletters!
March 2025 Data Community Newsletter
Community Updates
As you may have noticed, February 28 was the first day of our public soft launch of our community, and our online platform is officially publicly viewable! This is an important milestone in bringing this resource to the broader research community, and we want to thank all of you for being part of it! Feel free to refer other colleagues to the platform or suggest folks we should reach out to.
Note: While users still need to register and be approved for an account before engaging with community members and posts, all information (excluding private groups and private messages) is now searchable and visible to external parties. If you have concerns about how this affects information and discussion on the platform, you can check out our Guidelines and FAQs.
Task Force Updates
The four MJFF task forces are continuing their work to produce programming and resources for the Parkinson’s disease research community.
- Our Networking and Outreach Task Force is happy to announce an upcoming webinar! On Wednesday, March 12th, from 4:30-5:30 pm EDT (New York), we will have the privilege of hearing from Dr. Deborah Hall, a neurologist and movement disorder specialist at Rush University Medical Center, as well The Parkinson’s Foundation Chair of Neurological Sciences. Interested in joining? Please let us know in the event thread on Discourse and we’ll add you to the invite!
- The Data Modalities and Methodologies (DMM) Task Force has several ongoing projects in the MJFF Research Community GitHub. Co-lead @ehutchins highlighted some useful GitHub resources and tips.
- @mattk is leading one of these DMM projects, creating an Open Science Guide. Check out his Discourse post to learn more!
- As part of his DMM project, @cameronreidhamilton is developing a multimodal, Python-based data preprocessing and analysis pipeline designed for researchers working with PPMI datasets and other MJFF data.
- The Mentorship and Training Task Force is fostering its first collaborative effort, connecting @malosco’s PhD student @AnnaliseMiner with 23&Me’s @mattk in a project that will leverage Fox Insight data to investigate the link between head trauma in soccer players and PD.
Resources and Ongoing Conversations
- @Shanda shared a data ownership and sharing decision tree, developed by members of the Data Curation Network.
- As part of the Data Modality and Methodology Task Force, @danieltds has been working on useful PPMI clinical codes.
- @paularp and @ecebayram have been discussing methods to study gene-environment (GxE) interaction in inflammation and PD.
- @jgottesman shared documentation on genotyping procedures and QC methods for Fox Insight Genetic Sub-study (FIGS) data.
Welcome New Members
In the last month we welcomed over 25 new members from a range of labs and disciplines. We encourage you to reach out to our new members and extend a warm welcome to the community! Some of our new members include:
- @SLeslie (Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine)
- @namburin (Harrisburg University of Science and Technology)
- @sahare (Neuron23)
- @joebrazil (Technological University of the Shannon)
- @RLWilliamson (University of Pennsylvania)
That’s all for now, hope to see you around the forum or at an upcoming task force meeting! As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions either to @gginnan, @jgottesman, or our inbox at researchcommunity@michaeljfox.org.