Tag Archives: public involvement

Apple recently announced ResearchKit, a new software framework that turns the iPhone into a powerful tool for medical research.

In conjunction with the announcement of ResearchKit, The Michael J. Fox Foundation is announcing the launch of Fox Insight, a Web-based virtual clinical study open to individuals of any age, both with and without Parkinson’s, worldwide.

The Foundation also collaborated with biotech Sage Bionetworks on the development of a new Parkinson’s mobile app called Parkinson mPower that captures data on Parkinson’s symptoms and progression as part of a clinical study. Parkinson mPower is available for download in the iTunes App Store, and the mPower study is open to all U.S. residents over age 18, with or without a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

Later this year, data collected from participants who enroll in both mPower and Fox Insight will be used to validate the power of these two approaches in accelerating Parkinson’s disease research.

Watch a video by Apple to learn more about how ResearchKit and studies like mPower can help speed scientific progress toward cures by amplifying the patient voice in shaping research.

Read the press release to learn more about mPower and Fox Insight and future plans for both technologies.

Source:  Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Using data from old clinical trials, two groups of researchers have found a better way to predict how amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) progresses in different patients. The winning algorithms—designed by non-ALS experts—outperformed the judgments of a group of ALS clinicians given the same data. The advances could make it easier to test whether new drugs can slow the fatal neurodegenerative disease.

The new work was inspired by the so-called ALS Prediction Prize, a joint effort by the ALS-focused nonprofit Prize4Life and Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods (DREAM), a computational biology project whose sponsors include IBM and Columbia University. Announced in 2012, the $50,000 award was designed to bring in experts from outside the ALS field to tackle the notoriously unpredictable illness.