Foundation breaks barriers to help advance scientific research for Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) Spectrum Disease.
Fostering scientific collaboration between research laboratories across the United States and Europe, The Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation (GJCF) established the first Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) patient repository where people who have NMO can volunteer to donate their blood samples for scientific study.
The Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation Repository for NMO will be accessible to researchers at funded institutions including the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, the University of California, San Francisco, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute and Harvard University.
This sharing of blood samples between participating institutions will speed up the research process by allowing scientists to have access to samples to which they normally wouldn’t have access due to budget restrictions.
Partnering with the Accelerated Cure Project (ACP) in Boston, MA, and the University of Texas, SouthWestern Medical Center (UTSW) in Dallas, TX, the NMO Repository will exist as a project within the organizational structure of the ACP. The repository is based upon successful results of the Foundation’s initially funded ACP project dedicated to collecting and storing NMO patient samples.
In this new initiative, ACP will promote the continued enrollment of NMO subjects into the NMO Repository, and provide samples from the NMO Repository to qualified scientists whose proposed research will contribute to the diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and/or cure of NMO.
Volunteers can enroll to donate their blood samples with the ACP at their headquarters in Boston, MA, one of their satellite repository sites, or by accepting an enrollment visit from the UTSW nurse.
Researchers who want to request samples are asked to submit a written proposal using the ACP Samples Request Form. The proposal is reviewed at the ACP and ultimately submitted to an oversight committee for review. Researchers are encouraged to make application immediately upon discernment of need. A response will be forthcoming upon review and recommendation.
For more information and/or application please contact Sara Loud, ACP NMO Repository Director at phone number: (781) 487-0008 or fax number: (781) 487-0009 or visit the ACP website at: http://www.acceleratedcure.org