Thermo Fisher Scientific and Michael J. Fox Foundation collaborate to advance proteomics-enabled Parkinson’s precision medicine
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. announced the completion of Olink Explore HT proteomic analysis of approximately 5,500 research samples from The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s (MJFF) landmark study, the Parkinson’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PPMI). The resulting data are now in PPMI’s data repository, where they are available to the global research community.
The project creates a large-scale proteomics resource designed to help researchers study Parkinson’s disease at the protein level and investigate biological signals associated with disease progression, patient heterogeneity and potential biomarker development. By applying Olink technology to deeply characterized PPMI samples, Thermo Fisher is expanding access to MJFF’s dataset that may help advance precision medicine approaches to Parkinson’s research.
Olink, part of Thermo Fisher, enables high-throughput, affinity-based proteomic analysis using Proximity Extension Assay (PEA) technology. Olink's PEA-based platform is a scalable solution for protein biomarker analysis, supporting applications from discovery through translation and population-scale proteogenomics.
Proteomics can help researchers identify patient subtypes, characterize disease progression, uncover biological pathways linked to inflammation, lysosomal function and neuronal stress, and discover candidate biomarkers for future validation. Combining proteomic insights with longitudinal clinical, genetic, imaging and other molecular data can further enrich understanding of health and disease.
PPMI, sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Foundation, launched in 2010 and was recently renamed the Parkinson's Precision Medicine Initiative to reflect the field's shift toward defining Parkinson's by its underlying biology rather than clinical symptoms alone. PPMI's open-access data are available to researchers worldwide and have been downloaded more than 50 million times.
The analysis was completed as proteomics and multi-omics approaches gain broader use in neurodegenerative disease research. These methods can reveal dynamic biological changes that may not be captured through genomics or clinical assessment alone. Biobanks and large population studies are also adopting proteomic analysis to build richer molecular datasets that support biomarker discovery and precision medicine.
