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Deborah “Debi” Brooks became the organization’s co-founder and CEO.
Over time, the Foundation expanded its involvement across Parkinson’s science.
It supported research into disease biology.
It invested in potential treatments.
It helped develop tools and resources for scientists.
It supported studies designed to understand how Parkinson’s begins and progresses.
And eventually, the numbers became enormous.
By 2026, the Foundation reported that it had funded more than $3 billion in Parkinson’s research worldwide.
That makes it the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson’s research.
The figure is significant.
But the impact is easier to understand by looking at what some of that money helped build.
Research Became the Center of the Mission
Parkinson’s disease is complex.
There is no single pathway known to explain every case.
Researchers study genetics, proteins, cellular processes, environmental factors, biomarkers and many other potential pieces of the disease.
That complexity creates a difficult problem.
Finding better treatments requires more than funding one promising experiment.
Scientists need data.
They need biological samples.
They need participants for clinical studies.
They need methods for measuring disease progression.
They need ways of determining whether a potential treatment is actually affecting the underlying biology.
The Foundation increasingly invested in infrastructure designed to make that work possible.
One of its most important initiatives became the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative, commonly known as PPMI.
Building a Massive Parkinson’s Research Resource
PPMI was designed to help researchers better understand Parkinson’s disease and identify biomarkers.
Biomarkers are measurable biological characteristics that can help scientists detect or track a disease.