The Wetzel Foundation’s PURE (Positive Unrestricted Research Efforts) Initiative
offers targeted funding to researchers at the top neuroscience institutes in the country.
The Wetzel Foundation is dedicated to helping our nation’s top researchers discover treatments and cures for both ALS and dementia-related diseases. While The ALS Association’s 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge significantly increased awareness of the disease and raised an unprecedented amount of funding, proper funding remains very much an issue. Dementia-related diseases are currently among the top ten causes of death in America. They are also on the rise. The number of Americans suffering from Alzheimer’s alone is expected to more than double by 2050. Unfortunately, research funding for brain disease lags behind funding for all other diseases in the top ten. The Wetzel Foundation’s PURE (Positive Unrestricted Research Efforts) Initiative offers targeted funding to researchers at the top neuroscience departments in the country. In order to ensure the level of innovation and discovery that we need right now, PURE allows the researchers themselves determine how to best apply the money.
THE WETZEL FOUNDATION RESEARCH AND EDUCATION FUND
– Established January 2015
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is known the world over for leading groundbreaking ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) research and for providing exceptional care and support to patients and families living with this debilitating and complex disease. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease that often strikes people in the prime of their lives. Anyone can be diagnosed with ALS: a mother, a son, a sister, or a grandfather. ALS affects an estimated 350,000 people worldwide, with an average survival of three years. The degeneration of nerves leads to muscle weakness and impaired speaking, swallowing, and breathing, eventually causing paralysis and death. The effects are devastating, and currently there is no cure.
THE EADIE WETZEL DAVIS RESEARCH FUND
– Established January 2015
Columbia University Medical Center has long been recognized as a world leader in neurology and neuroscience, and faculty at the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain are pioneers in expanding their understanding of the origins and expressions of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS. Columbia’s faculty engage in pioneering research, use those discoveries to develop more effective courses of treatment, and recruit, train and nurture the early careers of the brightest young physicians and scientists entering the field. The largest Alzheimer’s disease research center in the country, the Taub Institute has an unparalleled record of success, and is uniquely well suited to meet the challenges that still lay before them, as they continue their work in the discoveries in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.
CUMC’s TAUB INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE AND THE AGING BRAIN
For over a century, Columbia University investigators have been engaged in pioneering neurological research, and the establishment of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain ratified it’s commitment to learning more about the origins and expressions of neurodegenerative disorders, and how they can better diagnose and treat – and ultimately even cure and prevent – diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease.
The Wetzel Foundation is happy to consider funding for other institutions’ ALS and dementia-related research. Please contact PURE@WetzelFoundation.org for more information.
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