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If the NIH already supplies the overwhelming bulk of funds for biomedical research in the U.S., why do we need the Parkinson Alliance Pro-seed grant program? As a step in the NIH grant award process, applications for grants are reviewed and rated by peer review groups composed of scientists from the research community outside the NIH. The following observation about the peer review process from neurobiologist and researcher Dr. Michael Gershon on page 126 of his new book on the enteric nervous system (which controls the digestive system), "The Second Brain," just happens to answer the question: "Money from the NIH . . . has been hard to come by for a long time, and peer review panels award priority only to projects that they deem likely to succeed. I like to joke that the way to get a grant from the NIH is to propose to prove something that everyone feels is true but to show it by state-of-the-art means. That is, of course, an exaggeration, but only a small one. Bright young stars presenting great ideas go down in flames unless these ideas are accompanied by enough data to make it obvious to reviewers that they can be trusted with the scarce [NIH] dollars..." The seed grants will fund preliminary research projects which will gather data needed to convince peer review panels to approve requests for NIH grants. Phil Tompkins Hoboken NJ age 61/dx 1990