Serena Hill
Venice Marathon fundraiser for The Cure CJD Campaign
Fundraising for University College London Hospitals Charity UK
Story
Help sponsor a group of pals (Bob, Fraser, Charlie, Rowan, Stasia, Morganna and Serena) to run the Venice half and full Marathon on the 27th of October! We are raising money for The Cure CJD Campaign to raise awareness of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and to aid ongoing research at the MRC Prion Unit at UCL towards pioneering a therapeutic treatment which is not yet available.
In memory of Andy Hill, a truly magnificent Dad with huge enthusiasm for the outdoors, keeping active through walking, cycling and travelling and living life to its fullest, this one is for you. He would have loved to have joined, especially with Italian Calzone being an inviting incentive but of course he will be with us in spirit.
So what is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease?
Alone in the UK CJD accounts for 1 in 5,000 deaths. With no known risk factors but more prevalent with age, the neurodegenerative disease is caused by a sporadic mutation of a prion protein in the brain. This misfolded protein exponentially multiplies overtime resulting in brain toxicity and shutting down of the brain. Day by day neuronal connections within the central nervous system deteriorate leading to the individual becoming bed bound within a couple of months from diagnosis. For some life expectancy can be a couple of weeks as the disease presents differently in all individuals.
What can we do?
Unfortunately, industry funding has proved challenging due to the invalid association with mad cow’s disease. Which is caused by the consumption of infected bovine from cattle with the toxic mutated protein rather than CJD acquired sporadically in humans. Therefore, funding of research at the prion clinic at UCL is dependent on philanthropy.
With knowledge of a potential therapeutic at the bench side but with no adequate funding a large scale clinical trial is yet to commence. From this we have instilled hope that with enough funding we can support advancements towards a cure.
Hopefully, you have been informed a little about CJD and the challenges towards treatment but with your support we can inch closer. Thank you so much for any donations of any amount and taking the time to read this page! Love from the Venice Marathon squad!
To read up more about CJD please follow the below link:
