Canada’s Globe & Mail interviews Michael J. Fox on his Foundation

Michael J. Fox sits down with the Globe and Mail to talk about Parkinson Disease and his research foundation.

The foundation demands that scientists share results and tools, and it closely monitors their work. But it also encourages them to take risks, devoting roughly $2-million a year to a rapid-response fund that gets money quickly into the hands of scientists who come up with new ideas.

In less than six weeks, a scientist can have the seed money to test out a hypothesis and see if it is worth pursuing. Most of the time, it doesn’t pan out, which is why government funding agencies prefer to support research that will lead to steady but incremental advances.

Read the whole interview here…