Actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, gives us a pep talk in SignOn San Diego on the search for biomarkers--a search led by the foundation that bears his name. The Michael J. Fox Foundation is funding a major 5-year, $40 million initiative for early detection, called the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative. Experts are hoping this huge study will finally put them on a road to a cure, which has been slowed because of lack of biomakers. "Simply put," writes Fox, "though we've made real therapeutic advances already, finding a biomarker would blow the roof off what we've been able to do so far." Fox also mentions the other major biomarker-discovery push going on in the research community--for Alzheimer's. "Some of the most exciting science reported in the past year emerged from the Alzheimer's disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a study similar to PPMI, which in a few short years has identified extremely promising biomarker candidates for Alzheimer's," Fox writes. Op-Ed