The Next Breakthrough Needs More Than a Promising Idea
Your support powers research, expertise, and collaboration that move science forward.
Help Fund Parkinson’s Research
“Every donation can open a door: to a new discovery, an earlier diagnosis, a better treatment, or a scientist whose work may help change the future.”
Why Research Matters Now
Science has brought us closer than ever to treatments that could slow and perhaps one day stop Parkinson’s and dementia with Lewy bodies. New discoveries are opening possibilities that did not exist before. But realizing their potential requires sustained commitment and the funding to move promising ideas forward. Your support can help transform today’s scientific momentum into tomorrow’s treatments and bring meaningful hope to patients and families who are still waiting.
The Questions We Must Answer
Understand the Diseases
We need to learn why these diseases begin, how alpha-synuclein pathology damages nerve cells, and why some people and brain regions are more vulnerable than others.
Detect Them Earlier
Reliable biomarkers could help identify disease during its earliest, prodromal stages before substantial changes in movement, cognition, or independence have occurred.
Change Their Course
We need biologically based therapies that protect nerve cells and target the disease itself, rather than treating symptoms alone.
Improve Treatment Today
We need better therapies for people living with advanced Parkinson’s or dementia with Lewy bodies, including treatments that control symptoms more effectively, reduce medication-related complications such as levodopa-induced dyskinesia, and preserve independence and quality of life.
Funding the Experiment That Moves an Idea Forward
A potentially important discovery may hinge on one decisive step: testing a new hypothesis, validating a biomarker, analyzing patient samples, or evaluating an early therapeutic strategy.
American Friends of ParkinsonFonds Deutschland aims to fund these critical next steps. We also want to give bold, exploratory ideas the opportunity to generate the first evidence they require—even when they are still too new or unconventional for traditional funding programs.
Because tomorrow’s breakthroughs often begin with experiments that seem small today.
Bringing the Right People to the Right Place
Exceptional research depends on exceptional people. But expertise, technologies, and patient resources are rarely located in one laboratory or one country.
We support highly talented early-career scientists who want to learn specialized methods at internationally renowned institutions. By enabling these research stays, we help train the next generation of research experts and lay the foundation for new ideas and lasting international collaborations.
Supporting Research Leadership
We also support experienced researchers who are establishing laboratories dedicated to Parkinson’s or dementia with Lewy bodies. Helping these scientists gain access to leading expertise and international networks can strengthen new research groups and contribute to the development of future research centers.
This focus on research mobility and international scientific exchange is central to our foundation.
What Your Support Can Make Possible
Your gift can help fund:
Every contribution becomes part of a larger path – from an unanswered question to new evidence, and from new evidence toward better diagnosis and treatment.
This Is a Moment to Move Research Forward
Your support can give bold ideas their first chance, connect a scientist with the expertise they need, or fund the experiment that moves a discovery closer to patients. Together, we can build the knowledge, talent, and international partnerships needed to detect Parkinson’s and Dementia with Lewy bodies earlier, treat them more effectively, and ultimately prevent them from determining a person’s future.