Ultimately, 17 million people posted videos – including celebrities like Bill Gates and The Foo Fighters – and raised a total of $115 million for the ALS Association. The ALS Association’s investment in the project wouldn’t have been possible without the Ice Bucket Challenge, the association said in a press release.
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The new gene called the NEK1 was identified by the researchers from Project MinE’s global gene sequencing initiative, this project was funded by the money which was raised through the Ice Bucket Challenge.
“This isn’t the cause of ALS, but if you have this mutation and if you get the environmental exposure, then you run a higher risk of getting ALS”, said Dr. James Wymer with UF Health.
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that leads to loss of muscle control and movement, and eventually paralysis and death within about two to five years of diagnosis. That gene is NEK1, one of the most common genes that contributes to the disease. However, genes likely play a direct or indirect role in more than 10 percent of ALS cases, according to the researchers.
And now, after raising more than $100 million in contributions, it turns out the money led to a groundbreaking discovery of a gene that helps in the treatment of the often-deadly disease that affects neurons in the brain and spinal cord.
Now that the gene has been discovered, the foundation says it’s looking to finish what the ice bucket challenge started and find a cure for ALS.
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The study, which involved more than 80 researchers in 11 countries, was published July 25 in the journal Nature Genetics. “This kind of collaborative study is, more and more, where the field is headed”.
