The Michael J. Fox Foundation Announces 5 Academic Centers Chosen To Receive Fellowships In Movement Disorders

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research has announced that it is collaborating with The Edmond J. Safra Foundation to select four academic centers across the United States and one more in Canada to host the inaugural class of the Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders.

The five 2016-2018 Edmond J. Safra Fellowship in Movement Disorders hosts selected are:

• Columbia University Medical Center in New York
• Emory University in Atlanta
• Northwestern University in Chicago
• Toronto Western Hospital in Ontario, Canada
• University of Alabama at Birmingham

This program aims to increase resources for clinician-researcher neurologists to receive specialized training in order to grow the global base of specialists available to treat people with Parkinson’s and make substantial contributions to emerging, new research for breakthrough treatments.

“People with Parkinson’s disease are the true beneficiaries of this program. These prestigious institutions are equipped to offer fellows the training and experience that will help them better serve their Parkinson’s patients,” explained Mrs. Lily Safra, who is the chairwoman of The Edmond J. Safra Foundation.

Todd Sherer, The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s CEO, added: “As our population ages, the number of people with Parkinson’s grows. So, too, grows the need for therapies to slow or stop disease progression and to better treat the varied symptoms. This program will train specialists who cannot only provide optimal care to Parkinson’s patients but also conduct research to speed the development of new treatments.”

Sherer went on to explain that there has been a lack of funding to support fellowships such as these, which has been limiting the amount of openings in movement disorder specialist training programs. The selected centers will now receive a fellow to begin studies in July 2016.

“Seeing a movement disorder specialist is one of the most important steps a person with Parkinson’s can take. Lily Safra and The Edmond J. Safra Foundation are making it possible to train more of these doctors, and we’re grateful for their partnership in addressing this patient need,” stated Michael J. Fox.

Read Other Related Recent News

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) and The Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation (BSDPF) have celebrated a new collaborative alliance at an event in which the MJFF awarded the inaugural Bachmann-Strauss Prize for Excellence in Dystonia Research. The prize was awarded for distinguished groundbreaking advancements and discoveries in the field of dystonia genetics to Xandra O. Breakefield, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital.