Do you remember sometime ago in around 2016 there was a challenge where people bath ice water and nominate others to do the same? Well some more of you remember that these donations went to an foundation called ALS Foundation? . So what happen to that money? Curious ? i will let you know in a little bit.
So what is ALS? some might ask. I would say it is one of the most deadliest. if not most horror sickness in the world that beats even cancer and HIV. The meaning of ALS is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. which is another term for degeneration of motor nerve cells motor cortex, spine and brain. So that basically mean , one by one you for muscle becoming weak. which is very slow yet timely process where . you lose your legs functionality . arms, talking , eyes , internal muscles and finally the lung muscle where everything stops. This is so scary decease that when you have it , your mind is clearer every moment in life which turn you into a dead body over the time slowly as you hopelessly looking at it.
So ALS foundation , or in the sense the families and friends of ALS patients get together to create this ice bucket challenge to raise money for research in order to find a cure. So i know your question now? So what about other deceases. They dont start ice bucket challenges yet they do enough researches . The answer lies with the amount of ALS patients in the world. It turn out to be very less people. Which sadly no pharmaceutical company though to spend heavily on research where they have very less patients.
so the money from ice bucket challenge donated to a project called MinE Project . A large genome research project initiate by 2 ALS patients in 2013. There are 2 phases to the project which study and extract around 22000 DNA samples for research on genomes to find out reason for ALS and potential cure for it. Ice bucket money made a huge boost to project and currently have huge research base.
in 2016 they made a huge discovery and major break through by find out gene that partly causes the ALS which named "NEK1" . the research done with researchers of 11 different countries. This is a huge break through and win for ALS
So if you are a someone who donated money to ALS foundation or did the ice bucket challenge or at least even shared or watched ice bucket challenge videos . you could be proud of yourself. The money that you helps to raise directly or indirectly going to cause a great leap toward the humanity.
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