James Beck, PhD

As Chief Scientific Officer, James Beck, PhD, sets the strategic direction for the Parkinson’s Foundation research vision. Dr. Beck oversees a portfolio that has guided more than $400 million in research to explore what causes Parkinson’s disease (PD) and how to improve treatments. With the goal of enhancing care and advancing research toward a cure to create a world without PD, Dr. Beck has played an integral role in positioning the organization as a leader in accelerating Parkinson’s research. 

Dr. Beck launched PD GENEration: Mapping the Future of Parkinson's Disease, an international study started by the Parkinson’s Foundation in 2019 that offers genetic testing for Parkinson’s-related genes and genetic counseling at no cost for participants with a confirmed PD diagnosis. This innovative study is directly accelerating precision medicine clinical trials for Parkinson’s while also advancing research and care.  

Additionally, he led the team that provided the first updated estimate of prevalence and incidence of PD in the US in nearly 50 years and collaborated with several organizations to ascertain the economic burden of Parkinson’s disease and investigate access to care for people with Parkinson’s. This current and relevant public health data on Parkinson’s was a critical influence on the passage of The National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act.

During his tenure, Dr. Beck has worked directly with those living with Parkinson’s to identify and support research of relevance to the PD community. While patient engagement is now seen as the standard, his initial efforts to drive research that reflects the input of the Parkinson’s community was entirely novel.  Dr. Beck is firmly committed to ensure that efforts to improve care and advance research continue to reflect the needs and priorities of those living with Parkinson’s to create better lives for the those living with PD.

In addition, he has greatly increased the organization’s impact in the PD community by: 

• Becoming the first PD organization to include people with Parkinson’s disease in the research review process 

• Tripling the number of applicants for the research grants program 

• Becoming the first PD organization with an open-access policy, encouraging broad data sharing including access to published Foundation-funded research to accelerate our understanding of PD 

• Launching npj Parkinson’s Disease, an international open-access journal devoted to publishing the most important scientific advances in Parkinson's research 

• Acting as co-chair of Parkinson's Disease Gene Curation Expert Panel, the first ClinGen working group for neurodegenerative diseases in adults 

• Serving on the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 

Dr. Beck has been published in multiple leading journals including npj Parkinson’s Disease, Neurology, Movement Disorders, Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, Genetics in Medicine, and Brain among others. He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at the New York University School of Medicine. He holds a BS from Duke University and a PhD from the University of Washington, Seattle. 

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