New Charity Focuses on Curing Alzheimer’s

Three prominent families with Boston ties formed a charity that has operated quietly for two years to raise money to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease within a decade, reports The Boston Globe.

The Cure Alzheimer’s Fund is supporting research that seeks to identify the genes connected with Alzheimer’s in an effort to find treatments, an approach some scientists consider too narrow. The project, announced publicly this week, aims to identify such genes by mid-2008, determine how the gene defects work, research potential drug candidates, and pay for drug testing in animals and people, the Globe reports.

It has raised nearly $3-million, awarding one-third of that to a Harvard geneticist and his colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, and has a goal of raising $15-million annually for its work. The foundation was started by the investment banker Jeffrey Morby and his wife, the venture capitalist Jacqueline Morby, as well as the developer Phyllis Rappaport and the venture capitalist Henry McCance.