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For Immediate Release: May 5, 2008
Media Contact: Liz McFarlane
Phone: 410-516-6248
William H. Adams Foundation Pumps New Energy, Funds into Search for ALS Cure
In a move to streamline the path to a cure for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, board members at the San Francisco-based Robert Packard Foundation for ALS Research - a nonprofit dedicated to raising funds for research into the disease - have voted unanimously to change its name to The William H. Adams Foundation for ALS Research. Established in 1999 by Bay Area investment banker Robert Packard, who died of the disease at age 41, the original Packard Foundation greatly supported research. Its chief effort raised more than $6.3 million to help launch what has become the nation's premier research-only institution for the disease, the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins.
Nine years later, William H. Adams, managing director of Chilton Investments Co., who was diagnosed with ALS last May, had similarly offered to start his own nonprofit to boost research. But to do so would waste time and resources, given the already established Packard Foundation. The solution became clear: A new name. Like its predecessor, the William H. Adams Foundation for ALS Research sustains the mission - hasten a cure for the motor neuron disease that causes complete paralysis and death.
Kennen D. Hagen, president of the Robert Packard Foundation and mutual friend of Packard and Adams, explains that the time was right to pass the baton to another West Coast philanthropist: "Like Bob, Bill is not only an incredible family and businessman; he's also surrounded by a cadre of individuals who want to fight this disease in the same way Bob did - through scientific research that holds scientists accountable and demands results."
The Johns Hopkins-based Packard Center for ALS Research is a worthy recipient of the Adams Foundation's charitable funding efforts, Hagen says. A collaboration of top scientists around the world, the Center aims to translate laboratory discoveries to the clinic as quickly as possible. All involved see this as a boon to research. "We're clearly looking forward to working with the Adams Foundation," says Jeffrey Rothstein, Director of the Packard Center. "Their support invigorates our longstanding ties with the West Coast and brings us closer to a cure."
>>more Recent News |
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| Recent news from the Robert Packard Center
for ALS Research: |
| William H. Adams Foundation Pumps New Energy, Funds into Search for ALS Cure - May 6, 2008 |
| Tell-Tale Protein Clumping in ALS is Less Complex Than Expected - April 10, 2008 |
ALS Mouse Study Highlights Astrocytes' Strong Potential as Therapy Target - February 7, 2008 |
| Exciting New Human ALS Trial: Lithium and Riluzole - February 7, 2008 |
| ALS Treatment: A Matter of Cleaning House? - December 19, 2007 |
New Study Brings What Goes Wrong in Inherited ALS into Focus - September 18, 2007 |
| New ALS Protein Could Be a Keystone - August 9, 2007 |
| Muscles More Than Passive Victims in ALS, Study Suggests - June 29, 2007 |
| Saer and O’Neill Named Packard Center Board Co-Chairs - June 28, 2007 |
Self-Attack? Self-Repair? First Real Look at Gene Activity in ALS Models Sparks Thirst for Answers - May 3, 2007 |
| Model of Accelerated Familial ALS Sheds Light on Disease Process - April 6, 2007 |
| Early News From First Large Search for Sporadic ALS Genes - February 20, 2007 |
| Human Stem Cell Transplants Mature Into Neurons and Make Contacts in Rat Spinal Cord - February 14, 2007 |
First Vaccine for Familial ALS Shows Potential in Model Mice - January 29, 2007 |
| Our Five-Year Plan? Let Human Cells EXcellerate Therapy - January 18, 2007 |
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