GIFTS OF NOTE Much to celebrate

When Sarah Kennedy’s father was affected by Alzheimer’s disease, she decided to take action. She and Jim Kennedy, her husband, became passionate supporters of the Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC). Chairing “A Family Affair,” they helped raised more than $800,000 to support research at the center. The dinner brought in the most money ever raised by an Emory event. The Kennedys also are supporting a clinical trial of a new drug therapy for patients with mild cognitive impairment, which often precedes Alzheimer’s.

The James B. Pendleton Trust made a $250,000 gift to physician Paul Spearman to support pediatric HIV research. The funds are being used to purchase imaging technology, which will enable pioneering research on virus assembly and replication. Seeing how the virus works at the molecular level is key to creating a vaccine.

Dana and Tom Curtis of Decatur (left, with daughters Haley Curtis Stevens and Hannah Marie Curtis), have made a generous donation for Parkinson’s disease research. The gift will be used to fund a three–year study of freezing of gait, a phenomenon that affects a majority of Parkinson’s patients. People with the condition describe it as feeling as if their feet are glued to the floor. Tom Curtis, who has Parkinson’s disease, is a patient of Stewart Factor, Vance Lanier Chair of Neurology and director of Emory’s Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Program.

Georgia has one of the highest death rates for newborns. Bernard Taylor is helping to change that. He gave $25,000 to the Global Collaborating Center in Reproductive Health, which works with community health providers in Georgia to improve maternal health and reduce fetal and newborn deaths. Directed by Emory pediatrician Alfred Brann, the center develops low-cost but effective interventions. Supporting this work makes a profound difference in the lives of mothers and babies.

To learn how you can make a major gift to the health sciences at Emory, call 404.712.4483. To make a gift online, please visit emory.edu/give.

Each year, I have the wonderful opportunity to get together with the faculty, staff, and students of Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC) to discuss the “State of the WHSC.” Together we reflect on the triumphs of the past year and focus our collective energy and will on the opportunities and challenges of the year ahead. In the past year, in spite of unprecedented external challenges, the people of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center achieved more than ever before in our history.

Wright Caughman Executive Vice President for Health Affairs

Our schools of medicine, nursing, and public health continue to educate and train students who are not only among the world’s brightest, but who also have a deep commitment to leading positive transformation in the world and having a meaningful impact on the lives of others. Our research funding remains consistently impressive in spite of a challenging funding environment, reflecting the strength of our investigators and the lifesaving breakthroughs they work so hard to pioneer. And our extraordinary health care team earned the nation’s top honors for quality and safety this past year—Magnet designation and recognition by the University HealthSystem Consortium as the No. 2 and No. 3 hospitals in the nation—without ever losing focus on the care and compassion that our patients and their families deserve.

As you’ve seen from the stories in this issue of Emory Medicine, from advances in brain tumor treatment and understanding the biology of fear to life-affirming palliative care and cutting-edge heart transplants, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center and all the people it serves have much to celebrate. Thanks as always to our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends for the outstanding year past and for all the outstanding years to come.