After receiving a $10 million donation recently from an alumnus, The Alzheimer’s Disease Center at UCLA’s Department of Neurology has a new name ““ the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research.
Jim Easton, a 1959 graduate of UCLA, made this contribution in honor of his mother, who died of Alzheimer’s, a progressive and fatal disease of the brain.
“I hope my gift, along with donations from many others, will help make it possible for the talented scientists and physicians at UCLA to develop a cure and eventually prevent Alzheimer’s disease,” Easton said in a statement.
The gift is unique in that it both helps the infrastructure of the center, and it also funds a series of projects known as high-risk, high-reward science.
“Our center has a therapeutic imperative and finding treatment to slow the disease course resonated with Easton,” said Joshua Grill, director of Easton Center education and recruitment core. “This created a partnership made in heaven.”
Since this donation will specifically be funding the most cutting-edge projects, Easton made it his duty to get to know the scientists as well as their research, Grill added.
“What Mr. Easton has done is permit some people who have already been funded to do research, to search to do something that is higher risk and higher reward,” said Gregory Cole, associate director of the Easton Center.
The Jim Easton Consortium for Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery and Biomarker Development will be supporting five main projects at the center, all based on preventing and understanding the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.