Michael J. Fox, the 65-year-old actor who has lived with Parkinson’s disease for 35 years, says he believes humanity is getting close to a cure after the foundation he founded helped direct more than $3 billion into research since 2000. Fox first experienced symptoms of young-onset Parkinson’s in 1990 at age 29 and went public with his diagnosis in 1998. Two years later he launched the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which has since grown into the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson’s research, backing more than 180 therapies now in or approaching human testing. This year the Lasker Foundation awarded the organization its Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award, crediting Fox and his foundation with helping dispel the stigma of the disease and spearheading a revolution in Parkinson’s research.
Fox told People that living with the disease has grown more difficult with time, but that the scale of ongoing research gives him hope. “But as long as we stay focused, we stay hopeful, we’ll get there. And the science is showing we’re getting close,” he said. He added that researchers are seeing “more research breakthroughs every year, new drugs to help patients live well, and better tools to help scientists move faster.”
The foundation is now preparing to launch a new fundraising campaign aiming to raise an additional $2.5 billion for research. Fox said in a statement that the foundation’s original goal was simple but ambitious: to cure Parkinson’s, and that he accepts recognition for the work “on behalf of everyone living with Parkinson’s and everyone with us in our shared mission to end the disease.”
