Gordon and Llura Gund Leadership Award

WASHINGON—March 13, 2008—Pat Furlong, founding president and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, has been named Research!America's 2008 Gordon and Llura Gund Leadership Award recipient. She will accept the award at Research!America's 12th Annual Advocacy Awards Gala on March 18, 2008, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC.

Furlong founded Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy in 1994 after both of her sons were diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Her sons died of the disease in their teenage years. PPMD is the largest non-profit organization in the U.S. solely focused on DMD. Its mission is to improve the treatment, quality of life and long-term outlook for all individuals affected by DMD through research, advocacy, education and compassion. DMD is the most common fatal, genetic childhood disorder, and affects approximately one out of every 3,500 boys each year worldwide. It currently has no cure.

Today, Furlong is considered one of the foremost authorities on DMD in the world. In addition to her role at PPMD, she is a board member of the Muscular Dystrophy Coordinating Committee, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. She also serves as a committee member of the Collaboration in Education and Test Translation Program, and on the data safety monitoring board for both the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network and the Cooperative International Neuromuscular Research Group.

Recipients of Research!America's Advocacy Awards are leading advocates for medical, health and scientific research. Susan Axelrod, president and founding member of Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), received Research!America's 2007 Gund Award.

The other recipients of Research!America's 2008 Advocacy Awards are Senator Edward M. Kennedy; Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research; William H. Foege, MD, MPH, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, senior fellow of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and emeritus presidential distinguished professor of the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health; and Richard A. Lerner, MD, president of The Scripps Research Institute.

Research!America is the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance working to make research to improve health a higher national priority. Its advocacy awards program was established in 1996 to honor outstanding advocates for research. For more information, visit www.researchamerica.org/outreach/awards.html.

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