Hello Friends and Family!

This year I will be participating in the 3rd Annual Walk & Roll for Research fundraiser. All monies go to the Civitan International Research Center (CIRC). I would like to ask for your support this year, any amount is appreciated. I truly believe the work done at the Civitan International Research Center is amazing.

I love that CIRC researches intellectual and developmental disabilities. As you may know, my grandfather had Alzheimer's disease and my grandma now has Alzheimer's/Dementia. Being able to support CIRC in learning more about this disease as well as ADHD, Down Syndrome and many more is near and dear to my heart. They take the knowledge they learn and share it with others to make lives better. From the Civitan International Research Center A-Z flyer here are a few updates at what they are looking into:

Dementia: A novel gene therapy for dementia created at the CIRC is now advancing to clinical trials in human patients. Dr. Erik Roberson’s laboratory has demonstrated that gene therapy may provide a novel approach for treating some people with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). His team found that gene therapy using a vector to restore progranulin expression in brain cells could prevent or reverse dysfunction in animal models that had FTD.

Autism: The Civitan Translational Autism Research Core at the CIRC is a one-of-a-kind patient research database and bank of biological samples with the goal of connecting researchers, clinicians and families to promote cutting-edge interdisciplinary translational research in neurodevelopmental disabilities. Headed by Dr. Cassandra Newsom, the Core hopes to bridge the gap between rapidly advancing discoveries and the hope for targeted, effected treatments and supports to improve the quality of life of people with developmental disability.

Small zebrafish are the focus of the lab of Dr. Summer Thyme. She’s using mutants of the fish to study the function of genes linked to autism and childhood-onset schizophrenia. The hope is that the information learned will be used to screen for drugs that influence brain development and perhaps correcting abnormalities.

Stress: What kind of impact do adverse early life events have on a person? Dr. Minae Niwa is looking at early psychosocial stress and how it alters adult behavioral patterns related to mood, social cognition, information processing, motivation and maternal care. Dr. Niwa’s findings so far have shown a novel link between adverse early life events, sustained neuro-endocrine dysregulation and long-lasting behavioral deficits.

Thanks very much for considering donating to the 2022 Walk and Roll For Research! I appreciate you and your support.

Sincerely,
Lynn Leitch

P.S. If you want to walk with me send me an email or give me a call and I can share the details on where I'll be walking.