Winter 2009: Campaign Update

Campaign Emory logo Brian and Kevin Duffy on a track

With their parents’ support, Brian Duffy (left), fifteen, and his brother Kevin, twelve, have raised thousands for research and programs at Emory University’s ALS Clinic. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) kills motor neuron cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to paralysis and problems breathing, eating, and swallowing. The disease has no cure and strikes patients who are often otherwise healthy and active before diagnosis.

Kay Hinton

Donor support bolsters research, scholarships, and patient care

The Woodruff Health Sciences Center continues to receive strong private support for research, patient care, teaching, and scholarships. Since the advance phase of Campaign Emory began in 2005, donor generosity has helped the center pass the halfway mark to its fund-raising goal of $1.07 billion.

The late cardiologist, teacher, and poet John Stone remembered Emory with a $75,000 bequest to his teaching fund for emergency medicine. A “seed” gift of $250,000 for exhausted cell research from Concerned Parents for AIDS Research recently leveraged a $13 million National Institutes of Health grant to Emory and Harvard to advance treatments and cures for AIDS.

Willard Hackerman, president and CEO of Whiting-Turner Construction, has committed $2 million to build the Hackerman-Patz Wing of the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge for cancer patients and their families receiving treatment at Emory. J. Rex Fuqua, president and CEO of Fuqua Capital Corporation, and Mary and John F. Brock III, chair and CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises, are investing in innovative efforts to understand depression. The Brocks, along with the Georgia Research Alliance and the Georgia Cancer Coalition, also support research in nanomedicine, a radical new approach to treating cancer.

Vincent and Mary Capka 78N, a recent Emory Healthcare retiree and kidney transplant recipient, established a scholarship targeting Emory employees interested in becoming transplant nurses. Gifts from Betty Daniels 51N 76MN, a pioneer in psychiatric nursing and former Emory faculty member, support nursing scholarships.

Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) epidemiologist John McGowan has established the Doris W. and John E. McGowen Sr. MD Scholarship Fund for MD/MPH candidates. Stephen Sencer, deputy general counsel at Emory, created the David J. Sencer MD Scholarship Fund, honoring one of the founding fathers of the RSPH. The Georgia Health Foundation has renewed scholarship support for mid-career public health practitioners in Georgia who are pursuing the career master of public health degree.

Dermatologist Bill Dobes 65C 69M 70MR is helping propel discovery at Yerkes National Primate Research Center by supporting research to treat, prevent, and cure diseases.