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| Thin Hom Aung (second row, left) was one of six runners on the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund Boston Marathon team. She is pictured with fellow marathon runners from the Central Mass Striders. |
All six of the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund Boston Marathon team members crossed the finish line Monday after months-long training.
In addition to the personal sense of accomplishment, the runners brought the Cellucci Fund to within $1,000 of its goal to raise $45,000 to fund breakthrough research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
“It was a great experience overall,” said Thin Hom Aung, an ICU nurse at UMass Memorial Medical Center. She said fundraising for ALS research was emotional and educational.
“It is a devastating disease. I learned so much along the way from people sharing their experiences. ALS became more public because of the ice bucket challenge, but we need to continue to keep it in the public’s eye,” Hom Aung said.
The UMass ALS Cellucci Fund supports the ALS research breakthroughs happening at UMass Medical School and in the laboratory of Robert H. Brown Jr., D Phil, MD, one of the world’s leading and most promising ALS researchers. The goal of the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund is to create a $10 million endowment to seed the boldest research ideas in the interdisciplinary labs under Dr. Brown’s authority.
To contribute to the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund and to learn more about the ALS research underway at the UMass Medical School visit the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund website, which also includes links to the runners’ fundraising pages.
Related link on UMassMedNow:
UMass ALS Cellucci Fund team running Boston Marathon
