Buoyed by Boye’s Gift

Last year, Cleveland Clinic ALS researchers Richard Ransohoff and Erik Pioro happened upon a discovery. They were studying the impact of tiny immune cells of the central nervous system—called microglia—that fight bacteria but that also have an inflammatory down side.

Ransohoff and Pioro found that neurons continually manufacture a potent agent called CX3CR1, a receptor that docks with a receptor on microglia. Mice without the agent or receptors are susceptible to CNS damage in which their neurons die.

William Boye Jr. with wife, Nancy. "Philanthropy meant so much to him," she says.

Because microglia have a probable role in ALS’s downward spiral, the two researchers felt they were on to something. But after working a year without funding, they realized they couldn’t continue.

Then, one day, recalls Ransohoff, “I got this wonderful e-mail from [Packard Center Director] Jeff Rothstein. It said a foundation wanted to support our research.” That life-saving charity, as Ransohoff calls it, is the Boye Foundation. While its mission is to support worthy charities, it also aims to sponsor a researcher focused on a cure for ALS, to be chosen by Rothstein and the Center’s advisory board.

Based in Franklin Lakes, N.J., the foundation is named for William Boye Jr., who, at 68, died in January 2004 of complications from ALS. A specialist on the New York Stock Exchange and president of Webco Securities, Boye was interested in everything, recalls his wife, Nancy. The couple married in 1958 and had four children.

After long days in the office, Boye would coach baseball and soccer, in addition to leading a Boy Scout troop. His first ALS symptom came when his legs buckled unexpectedly, and he died two years later. Rob Boye, secretary of his father’s foundation, thought the Packard Center would be the best place to support ALS research.

Boye’s sharp mind and energy never waned. He was winning at computer bridge the night he died, notes Nancy. As a Boye Foundation researcher, Ransohoff intends to keep that dogged spirit alive. “It’s the purest type of philanthropy—giving to someone you trust.”

Next > Lou Gehrig the Man
Jonathan Eig offers insight into the baseball legend who made ALS famous.