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Katharine Rayner Fund for Biomedical Research to Bolster ALS Research at Michigan

The efforts of physician-scientists in the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute to find an effective treatment for patients with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have received a substantial boost from a $1 million gift from Mrs. Katharine J. Rayner, a prominent philanthropist based in New York City, which will establish the Kathy Rayner Fund for Biomedical Research and support the work of a Kathy Rayner Scholar in the institute.

Mrs. Rayner’s gift will support research under the direction of Taubman Institute Director Eva L. Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., and her colleague, Brian Callaghan, M.D., in the U-M ALS Clinic. ALS, often referred to as “Lou Gehrig's Disease,” is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

Drs. Feldman and Callaghan and others are working hard to understand ALS — a very complex and mysterious disease — and to devise multiple ways to attack it. The Rayner Fund will give Drs. Feldman, Callaghan and others in the Taubman Institute the resources to support many innovative and potential breakthrough projects under development.

“I have been so impressed by the work of Dr. Feldman and her team of scientists in their efforts to understand this terrible disease and develop effective therapies to treat patients suffering from it,” Mrs. Rayner said. “I believe that they are perfecting treatments that will revolutionize how the medical community worldwide approaches the disease.”

Dr. Feldman, the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology and Director of the Program for Neurology Research and Discovery, is conducting the first-ever human clinical trial of a stem cell treatment for ALS. If this current ALS clinical trial proves effective, Taubman physician-scientists may be able to provide similar therapy with patients’ own cells.

An Associate Director of the ALS Clinic and a Clinical Lecturer in the Department of Neurology, Dr. Callaghan is creating new stem cell lines by taking tissue scrapings from ALS patients and, through a newly discovered technique, turning them into “induced pluripotent” stem cells. These stem cells have many of the same properties as embryonic stem cells, and they have one important advantage — because they come from patients, there should be little resistance when they are injected back into the individuals.

“The Rayner Fund is the perfect embodiment of the mission of the Taubman Institute,” Dr. Feldman said. “It will fund research into a terrible neurodegenerative disease that is highly innovative and pushes the bounds of medical knowledge. This is science that wouldn’t otherwise be possible without the support of benefactors such as Mrs. Rayner.”

“I have known Kathy for years,” said A. Alfred Taubman, founder and chair of the Taubman Institute. “She is a wonderfully generous individual. Her remarkable gift will truly mean a difference to the tens of thousands of people suffering from ALS.”