One year on: how much did the ALS Ice Bucket achieve?
Around this time last year the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge campaign went ‘viral’. It raised more than $100 million for research into amyotrophic laterals sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
More than 17 million people uploaded their challenge videos to Facebook; these videos were watched by 440 million people a total of 10 billion times, according the ALS Association.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge money funded a research breakthrough, finding a protein in cells – TDP-43 – linked to ALS. Jonathan Ling and his team of researchers found that in 97% of ALS cases, TDP-43 wasn’t doing its job. Now they know this, they’ve begun work on new therapies to do TDP-43’s job for it. If successful, this can slow down progression of the disease. Ling hopes to have therapies, based on his research, in clinical trials within the next three years. (via Upworthy)
Around 30,000 people in the USA have ALS, with an average age of 55 years at diagnosis. It is more common in men than in women.
If this has you thinking about the Chilli ME Challenge, here is the latest news on the $750,000 raised so far. Go and challenge a friend or family member to it, if you haven’t already!
What did you think of the Ice Bucket Challenge? Does this news encourage you to get involved in fund raising for ME?
