The Spark When Science, Creativity, and Technology Converge.
May 23, 2024
Washington, D.C.
Hosted By
About the Event
Union Station : Washington, DC
May 23, 2024
6:00 pm reception
7:00 pm presentation
Please join us to hear from presenters who will share their thoughts on the inflection point where disease discovery is being supported by emerging technologies. You will also hear from Steve Gleason through a reading from his new book, A Life Impossible. He will speak about making the seemingly impossible, possible, and how resilience is that foundation. We hope you leave informed, inspired, and motivated
There will be a reception honoring Steve Gleason, with the presenters to follow. Light fare, beverages, and cocktails will be available.
About Answer ALS
Answer ALS began in 2014, when former NFL player, Steve Gleason, who is living with ALS, hosted a summit and asked researchers, clinicians and ALS patients and caregivers to develop a business plan to end the disease. Ultimately, that plan became Answer ALS.
The Answer ALS program is creating the largest and most comprehensive foundation of ALS data ever amassed from an enormous sampling of ALS patient participants and freely sharing to researchers around the world. The data and biological samples are being mined to uncover ALS causes, subtypes, pathways gone awry and drug targets. Over 350 independent ALS research projects have resulted from the Answer ALS resource to date.
These efforts could also potentially provide deeper understanding of Alzheimers, Parkinsons and other neurodegenerative diseases.
ALS in the US
30K+
2
6
5K+
0
People with ALS
Treatments
Drugs in Phase 3
Deaths annually
Cure
Speakers : Presenters
Sponsors
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A Life Impossible : By Steve Gleason & Jeff Duncan
In 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that takes away the ability to move, talk, and breathe. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-three years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date.
His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced. Writing using eye-tracking technology, Gleason covers his pre-ALS life through the highs and lows of his NFL career with the New Orleans Saints, where he made one of the most memorable plays in Saints history, leading to a victory in the first post-Katrina home game, uplifting the city, making him a hero, and reflected in a nine-foot bronze statue outside the Superdome. Then came his heartbreaking diagnosis. Gleason lost all muscle function, he now uses Stephen Hawking-like technology to communicate, and breathes with the help of a ventilator. This book captures Gleason and his wife Michel's unmatched resilience as they reinvent their lives, refuse to succumb to despair, and face his disease realistically and existentially.
This unsparing portrait argues that a person's true strength does not reside solely in one's body but also in the ability to face unfathomable adversity and still be able to love and treasure life.
From NFL player Steve Gleason, a powerful, inspiring memoir of love, heartbreak, resilience, family, and remarkable triumph in the face of ALS