Analysis of tauopathy research funding between 2006 and 2016 reveals critical gaps in research priorities.

Neurodegenerative diseases encompass a range of diagnoses, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Despite decades of advancements in understanding the neurobiology of individual diseases, this class has few disease-modifying therapeutics and a paucity of biomarkers for diagnosis or progression. However, tau protein aggregation has emerged as a potential unifying factor across several neurodegenerative diseases, which has prompted a rapid growth in tau-related funding.

Opportunities for epilepsy: Outcomes of the Milken Institute State of the Science Retreat.

The Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy has launched a Giving Smarter Program in Epilepsy to inform philanthropists on the state of the science for the epilepsy field, key challenges, and solutions to address them. As part of the program, the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy hosted a retreat to identify strategic investments that would accelerate epilepsy research to ultimately improve care. The top three prioritized opportunities from the retreat were to 1) invest in data standards and analytical tool development, 2) support young investigators, and 3) promote cross-sector collaborations especially between basic scientists, preclinical researchers, clinicians, and patients.