March 25, 2004

VICE PRESIDENT's AWARD

$500 benefit

Our Vice President Award recipient for 2004 is PALS Fran Delaney of Burlington, MA diagnosed in 2001. Fran has been instrumental both independently and through ALS-TDF in bringing more awareness about ALS, advocating more research funding for ALS and more importantly actually raising money for ALS research (over $1.2 million).

His contagious smile and determination (hi quote "We need to poke ALS in the eye") to fight ALS was instrumental in creating vigor among TDF employees who had an opportunity to interact with him while he was on the board of ALS-Therapy Development Foundation. Personally for me, Fran served as a catalyst to continue thinking about the near term needs of patients like him, Steven and my sister-in-law.

Fran is a natural leader and his managerial and marketing abilities transformed those around him to work together as a team and effectively deliver the ALS message to the community at large. Under Fran's direction there have been over 50 fundraising events that have also been used as tools to inform people about ALS. He has done many live radio interviews, appeared on the live television program NITEBEAT with Dr. Robert Brown and had the NBC's Today Show film crew interview him for a segment that was broadcast nationwide.

He also brought research groups together and created a unifying platform for raising awareness and money for ALS research. His motivation and thought provoking induced researchers to start thinking more about near term application of their basic research so that ALS patients today can benefit from their work. This I think removes one major obstacle in finding a treatment or cure for ALS. Now I am happy that most scientists think that ALS is treatable rather than keep telling that the race to a cure is still years away. I am sure with the attitude that Fran has been able to build and his leadership in generating greater hope and awareness about ALS, a good treatment for ALS is around the corner.

Fran certainly is a "Free Radical" what has made a difference in the fight against ALS.

nominated by Tennore Ramesh, DVM, PhD

Source: http://www.march-of-faces.org