For those of you following (and participating!) in the PPMI study, this recently paper uses data generated from the study. As you may recall, this story has been established to validate lead biomarker candidates. The data collected (from 400 PD patients and 200 controls) is extensive -- biosamples, clinical measures, neuroimaging. Importantly, the study was designed so that as data was collecting during the study, it would be made available real time --- this is exactly what is happening.

The study is STILL RECRUITING but some subjects have been in the story for over a year (I'm a control and just had my 3rd LP last week so in one year, they have quite a bit of data from participants). A data portal was created to enable scientists worldwide access to all the data. Since the portal went live, over 26,000 downloads have already taken place. The PPMI database www.ppmi-info.org is a literal gold mine.

Look for more and more progress on identifying these critical markers. All very exciting!

Debi