We lost our hero, Augie Nieto, on February 22, 2023. Augie’s Quest lives on as Augie lived. We stay true to his vision, his heart, and his relentless focus on driving breakthroughs in ALS research. We exist to fund the top science to change lives.
We’re proud of our partnership with the ALS Therapy Development Institute, and what the funding from Augie’s Quest has contributed to this past year including:
- Identifying lifestyle factors through the ALS Research Collaborative that could play a role in the risk of developing ALS or potentially contribute to a slower progression of the disease. This valuable information has the potential to guide future generations in better understanding ways to influence the progression of ALS or even prevent its development. This dataset is made possible through the generous contribution of essential data by nearly 1000 individuals with ALS, and your past support of Augie’s Quest.
- This de-identified data is shared with researchers around the world to advance the global effort to find effective treatments for ALS.
- Funding of the Augie’s Quest Translational Research Center that
- Initiated collaborative studies, using advanced cell biology techniques, to explore two new drug targets– medicine intervention points – in motor neurons from people with ALS grown in the lab.
- Developed new techniques for growing and studying axons – the long connections between neurons and muscles – in the lab.
- These long connections break down in ALS. Understanding how they break down and discovering ways to stop that is important for developing effective treatments.
- Initiated important studies of the how cells from people with ALS handle or mishandled critical RNA molecules.
- RNA molecules carry the instructions from human genes to the rest of the cell so that the cells can function properly. This is impaired in ALS and will likely need to be repaired. Scientists in the AQ TRC are exploring treatments that might address this dysfunction.
We proudly use the tagline “incurable is unacceptable,” because we can’t stop, we won’t stop, until there are treatments available for everyone with ALS that truly improve their lives and end this horrible disease.
