The Hille Foundation of Tulsa has made a significant gift to support research on diseases of aging at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. OMRF will use this gift and matching dollars to fund an endowed research position, the Hille Foundation Endowed Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease Research. The holder of the chair will focus on researching diseases that strike the aging brain. Of principal interest will be Alzheimer’s, which afflicts more than 4 million Americans, and other debilitating conditions such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease).
“Two of our foundation’s focuses are Alzheimer’s disease and Oklahoma,” said Maggie Yar, Executive Director of the Hille Foundation. “With this gift, we have the chance not only to fund world-class Alzheimer’s research but also to do so right here in Oklahoma.”
Founded in 1997 by Jo Bob and Mary Ann Hille of Tulsa, the Hille Foundation supports a wide variety of philanthropic causes, including health, medical research, arts and humanities, social services and education. In 2004, the foundation gave approximately $2 million to charities.
“The Hille Foundation is a leader when it comes to private support for Alzheimer’s research,” said OMRF President J. Donald Capra, M.D. “We are proud and grateful to partner with the Hille family in the fight against this disease that robs so many of so much.”
Although OMRF has not yet determined who will occupy the new Hille Chair, the 15th endowed chair at OMRF, that scientist will likely come from one of two programs that have made important breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s and neurodegenerative research.
In OMRF’s Protein Studies Research Program, a team of researchers led by Jordan Tang, Ph.D., discovered the enzyme believed to cause Alzheimer’s disease. Tang and his lab are now testing compounds they hope will one day halt the progress of the disease in humans.
And in OMRF’s Free Radical Biology and Aging Research Program, Robert Floyd, Ph.D., pioneered the use of certain substances to prevent and even reverse brain injuries in animals that had suffered strokes. Those substances have been transformed into drugs that are now in the final phases of human clinical trials. If successful, the drugs could offer hope to hundreds of thousands of Americans who suffer brain injuries as a result of strokes each year.
In recent years, OMRF has significantly expanded its neuroscience programs, adding several new faculty members and broadening its research efforts. Last month, it opened the state’s first small animal magnetic resonance imaging facility, which will provide scientists with a powerful tool for understanding brain diseases.
“Thanks to the generosity and foresight of the Hille Foundation, our scientists can continue to make headway against diseases that affect millions of seniors,” said Capra.
“We don’t necessarily expect a cure to come from this gift,” said Yar of the Hille Foundation. “All we are hoping for is more knowledge. Because the better we understand Alzheimer’s, the greater the chance we can one day stop it.”
About OMRF:
Chartered in 1946, OMRF (www.omrf.org) is a nonprofit biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding and curing human disease. Its scientist focus on such critical research areas as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, lupus and cardiovascular disease. OMRF is home to Oklahoma’s only member of the national Academy of Sciences.
