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The former New Orleans Saints’, safety, Steve Gleason’s block punt from 2009 is still talked about to this day… Gleason who played for the Saints from 2000-2008, has since his retired, along with his #37 jersey.
It was in 2011 when Gleason was diagnosed with ALS or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Since than, he hand his wife Michel have formed a non-profit organization called “Team Gleason” that, according to their website, “helps to provide individuals with neuromuscular diseases or inures with leading edge technology, equipment and services. Create a global conversation about ALS to ultimately find solutions and an end to the disease and raise awareness toward ALS by providing and documenting extraordinary life adventures for individuals with muscular diseases or injuries.”
It was Gleason who inspired the “groundbreaking” research to help defeat the his disease, ALS.
On Wednesday, the announcement was made that a new project started by Johns Hopkins University’s Robert Packard Center for ALS Research, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Regenerative Medicine Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital Neurological Clinical Research Institute.
A doctor of John Hopkins, Jeffrey Rothstein said, “The bottom line is this will teach us about ALS… We hope this will teach us the pathway to an effective drug.”
He says that as of now, there is only one federally approved drug, but this drug only slows the disease a little bit…. “at a minimum, we need a drug to slow the disease (more.) What we aspire to are drugs to reverse the disease, but we’ll take it one step at a time.”
It’s roughly estimated that 30,000 Americans currently are living with ALS and with new diagnosis or ALS deaths happening every 90 minutes in the U.S.A. too.
ALS or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis causes the “gradual degeneration of motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in difficulty swallowing and breathing and eventually paralysis.”
This new project will help scientist widen their research and with the Team Gleason, researchers, patients, caregivers and advocates have all come together.
Check out TEAM GLEASON’S website and look at how they are trying to help research help the patients with ALS.
Via:Teamgleason.org
