2023-24 LLL Impact Report - Flipbook - Seite 38
A powerful grassroots community effort to raise $3.5 million through Live Like Lou’s It’s a Whole
New Ballgame for ALS Research campaign launched in 2020. We sought to leverage the excellent
research capabilities and reputation of the Vanderbilt medical community to establish new,
pre-clinical, and innovative ALS science at this top-tier research institution.
DIRECTOR OF
ALS RESEARCH
Thanks to this unique public, private,
institutional partnership among the state of
Tennessee, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
(VUMC), and hundreds of donors to the Live Like
Lou Foundation, neuroscientist Véronique Belzil,
PhD, MS, began as VUMC’s Director of ALS
Research at VUMC, in January of 2024.
“We have not only reached our initial goal
to raise $3.5 million, but we’ve successfully
secured more than $5.1 million to seed Dr.
Belzil’s work leading pre-clinical, novel science
investigations,” shared W.L. Gray Jr., chair of
the Live Like Lou Foundation Board of Trustees.
In the fall of 2023, the state of Tennessee
granted $1.5 million to Live Like Lou to further
its work to advance ALS research through this
campaign. Governor Bill Lee and the Tennessee
State Legislature have funded $2.5 million to Live
Like Lou’s efforts to date.
We are grateful to the many friends of Live
Like Lou—many of whom are living with ALS or
have served as caregivers—who have
championed our efforts in Tennessee and
beyond to bring the hiring of this position from a
dream to reality.
Dr. Belzil comes to Vanderbilt from the Mayo
Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. “Dr. Belzil is a
recognized leader in ALS research whose state-ofthe-art experimental approaches are well suited to
synergize with VUMC’s strengths in genomics and
bioinformatics and our goal of making health care
personal,” said Dane Chetkovich, MD, PhD, chair of
VUMC’s Department of Neurology.
“Thanks to the partnership with the Live Like
Lou Foundation, Vanderbilt was able to recruit Dr.
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