Todd Sherer, PhD, Vice President, Research Programs, MJFF

Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery

At the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, Todd Sherer leads a 16-member team — including people with Ph.D.s, project managers and grant administrators — that reviews approximately 800 grant proposals every year, in conjunction with the foundation's scientific advisors. "We fund about US$35 million in Parkinson's disease research annually, with a strong focus on preclinical therapeutic development and clinical research," says Sherer.

Following his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Virginia, USA, which focused on neurotrophins and cell death pathways in neurodegenerative disease, Sherer was partially funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Tim Greenamyre (one of the foundation's scientific advisors) at Emory University, Georgia, USA. His work focused on understanding the role of environmental factors in Parkinson's disease and on the development of disease model systems, and led to Sherer being awarded a full postdoctoral fellowship by the foundation.

From his interactions as a grant awardee, Sherer was impressed by the foundation's plan, strategy and patient-oriented perspective. Although he enjoyed working at the bench, he knew he wanted a job that would help translate research into tangible results for people living with the disease. "I was interested in becoming a part of the foundation's model for accelerating progress toward breakthrough treatments and a cure," he says. In 2004, he was hired by the foundation as Associate Director of Research Programs. In 2006, he was promoted to Vice President.

With his team, Sherer works with both academic and industry scientists. "We stay in close touch with our awardees, helping troubleshoot when projects hit problems or strategizing next steps. Sometimes, we provide additional funding when the work shows promise to impact diagnosis or treatment," he says, adding that the foundation is always focused on meeting patients' needs. "We can't just fund interesting or elegant science for its own sake. We need to answer the critical questions that will push discoveries toward the next stage of development, whatever that might be." Each award is therefore structured so that the research meets predetermined milestones, and awardees are required to present their progress to review committees at specific points in the project. In addition, the foundation hopes to engage researchers worldwide through a recently launched online research community (see http://www.pdonlineresearch.org).

The overall aim is to reward excellent scientists for doing patient-relevant research. "We are confident that we are inventing novel and successful ways to do that," says Sherer. "We're constantly fine-tuning and trying new things. It's possible in life to paralyse yourself looking for that one perfect approach to a problem. Everyone, from our staff to our board to Michael J. Fox himself, has a willingness to jump in, experiment, assess and learn as we go. Our model is new and unproven, so we have to approach things that way."