The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge broke the internet two years ago, which saw over 17 million people post videos.
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It turns out all of that dumped water led to a breakthrough.
The money funded the largest ever study of inherited ALS and identified a new gene, NEK1, that ranks among the most common genes that contribute to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the ALS Association said in a statement on Monday.
“The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge enabled us to secure funding from new sources in new parts of the world”, Muller said in the ALS Association press release.
Best reaction of them all.
More commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
Project MinE, a collaboration between Dr. John Landers at UMass in Worcester and Dr. Jan Veldink from UMass’ center in the Netherlands, discovered the gene after an worldwide effort to sequent the genomes of at least 15,000 people with ALS. Figures from the group show $1 million of that helped fund a global effort to help find genetic drivers of the condition called Project MinE. “Anything I can do to help bring awareness and help support the Florida Chapter of the ALS Association, I’m willing to do”. $77 million (67%) of the $115 million raised during the challenge was allocated to research. “This kind of collaborative study is, more and more, where the field is headed”. The discovery will allow scientists to potentially target the gene and use it for therapy development.
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The findings of this research were recently published by Nature Genetics.
