Vote for our Children- Vote for Life

Chase Community Giving- Is a charitable FB voting program. Chase is giving away 5 million dollars to be shared between 196 deserving charities. Jonah's Just Begun and Sanfilippo Research Foundation Inc. are grass-roots foundations raising funds for medical research towards an insidious disease known as Sanfilippo or MPSIII. Sanfilippo is a neurodegenerative disease affecting children, it's fatal and there is no cure. Our foundations are on our way to finding a treatment that will save our children. First and Second place would give us $350,000, this funding will go a very long way towards the fight against Sanfilippo. FB holders, you only have to vote one time and you can only vote for 2 deserving foundations. If you have a Chase account you can vote 2 more times. Voting is from September 6th-19th. This funding will go towards the ongoing medical research of our gene therapy treatments. Our foundations have initiated the first Sanfilippo treatments for our children. Sanfilippo Syndrome is an ultra rare pediatric disease, it's fatal and there currently is no treatment. We hope that these treatments will come in time for Jonah, Ben and all of our friends... but the clock is ticking. This funding will ensure that the next generation of Sanfilippo children will live happy and healthy lives. No parent should have to watch their child suffer and die. Please vote for our kids by following the link's below, pass along to all of your FB friends. Thanks in advance, Jonah's Just Begun & Ben's Dream ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** Sanfilippo Syndrome is caused by a mutation which stops the production of an enzyme heparan sulfate acetyl CoA: -glucosaminide N-acetyltransferase, (HGSNAT) responsible for degradation of heparan sulfate, a sugar substrate. This substrate is then stored in the lysosome. The accumulation of this sugar causes progressive and severe neurological deterioration early in life. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***A grant for $250,000 will be distributed to these three research projects. First to our on going research of Gene Therapy, this is a collaboration between scientists: Alexey Pshezhetsky of Sainte Justines Childrens Hospital and Brian Bigger of Manchester University. The project is titled Assessment of the Efficacy of Long-Term Intracerebral AAV-hHGSNAT Delivery in MPSIIIC mice. This December our mice will be receiving the first injection of the gene therapy. Wish us luck! Funds for our second project will be for a Genestin trial with Brian Bigger in the UK. A clinical trial is ready to take place as soon as another half million dollars is raised. Small price to pay for a treatment that will help thousands of children. For more information about the effects of Genestin on our Sanfilippo mouse please refer to this paper. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19632871 Lastly but not least funds will be distributed to a project with The University of Michigan and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to screen potent activators of TRPML1. This research is very similar to the science described in this paper. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Early%20Neurodegeneration%20Progresses%20Independently%20of%20Microglial%20Activation%20by%20Heparan%20Sulfate%20in%20the%20Brain%20of%20Mucopolysaccharidosis%20IIIB%20Mice