NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Non-profit advocacy group CurePSP said this week that it has received a commitment of $600,000 to support its effort to analyze the genetics of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
The donation is being made by CurePSP board member Jeffrey Friedman and his mother, Marcine Friedman, who have already made an initial contribution of $250,000. The organization said that it aims to raise money to match the total commitment.
PSP is a neurodegenerative brain ailment that affects nerve cells that control walking, balance, mobility, vision, speech, and swallowing. It has no known cause, treatment, or cure.
Through the CurePSP Genetics Consortium, CurePSP is working with geneticists and other researchers to identify gene mutations involved in PSP and related conditions, including a collaboration with Cypher Genomics and the University of Pennsylvania.
CurePSP said that the donation from the Friedman family will be used in part to establish bioinformatics and computing resources for large-scale sequencing.
"We will need to raise additional contributions to fund incremental sequencing and project completion, but this is the fastest way to generate critical data on genetics of PSP," Jeffrey Friedman, who is also chairman of the CurePSP board's research committee, said in a statement. "We believe that rapidly pushing the genetics is the best way to identify new targets for the next phase of drug development to treat PSP patients."