As we reflect upon 2017, our organization has seen fantastic growth and commitment, strengthening both our organization and the entire Pitt Hopkins community.
Our researchers have made amazing strides in their efforts to find a cure for Pitt Hopkins syndrome. We have developed a PHRF Road to Treatment Plan, and are aggressively pursuing treatment approaches in the areas of: Gene Therapy, Ion Channel, NMDA Receptors, M4 Receptor, HDACi, Up-regulating Protein, Metabolic/Mitochondrial Dysfunction, and Symptomatic treatments. Our extraordinary researchers are located in universities and private companies across the US and the world, including University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Texas Southwestern, Vanderbilt University, Icagen Inc., Jackson Labs, University of California Los Angeles, University of Chile, Healx, Bates College, Drexel University, Johns Hopkins University, and Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia.
This has been our highest fundraising year in our entire existence, raising over $500,000. Since our beginning in 2012, we had never thought we could raise a half a million dollars in one year. But yet our small but mighty foundation did.
An incredibly heartwarming change we have seen has been a shift in the amount of Pitt Hopkins families who are embracing fundraising, many for the first time, and so enthusiastically. It is tremedously motivating and encouraging for our Board of Directors to go from the only fundraisers, with a few exceptions, to having so many families also feel like they want to help by fundraising for a cure, for the sake of their own child. And we are so heartened by this effort from the families. This is building our Pitt Hopkins community like we could have never dreamed.
Looking to 2018
We are ever hopeful for 2018. It holds so much promise. For the future of our kids, so that they may see a day when they can achieve to their incredible potential, and finally have their bodies show us what they what they know—which is a great deal. They deserve this chance. And so we will keep battling on.
We don’t just hope for a miracle, we fight for one.
