Join the Fight Against ALS: Push-ups for a Cure

Yentli Soto Albrecht is organizing this fundraiser.

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Push-ups for ALS research

My dad, Brother Frank Albrecht, did as many daily push-ups as his age for as long as he could, clocking in at 65 at the end of 2023 despite his rapidly progressive ALS.

By August 24, 2024, he had lost the capacity to walk, move his arms and head, and breathe. He died in my arms, and I want to stop the death from this and related forms of neurodegeneration in my lifetime. For my dad, for my family, and for me.

For this fundraiser, there are 3 ways to raise money for ALS research:

1) Do as many push-ups as you can in a row, and ask your friends/family to pledge to match you $ per push-up.

2) Pledge to match your friend/family’s push-up count with $.

3) Any combination of 1 & 2.

Once you’re done, challenge others--that’s it! We are not ableist so do anything you want within your means, and it counts as a push-up.

Why me? A doctor-doctor-in-training

I’m fundraising for my ALS & FTD research efforts developed this spring from blooming collaborations around the world since I decided to work on a cure for my family. I'm an MD-PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, nearing the end of my training to be a physician-scientist. These "doctor doctors" have one foot in research, one in medicine, and are best positioned to develop cures for untreatable diseases. Hope has to start somewhere!

My natural focus is on C9orf72 (C9), where a genetic 'mutation' (read: it's complicated!) is the most common cause of ALS & FTD (frontotemporal dementia (FTD)) that runs in families. This gene has plagued my family, and has claimed the life of my grandmother, aunt, and dad. Each member of my family, including me, has a 50% chance of having this gene and developing either ALS or FTD in their lifetime. If we have the gene, the likelihood of dying of ALS or FTD by mid 60s, like my dad, is nearly 100% in C9 families. The odds of dying in your 50s like my aunt, is 50%. The C9 gene also causes up to 10% of sporadic ALS and 20% of non-familial FTD. Many of these projects would advance critical knowledge & cure efforts for ALS generally.

Where does the money go?

Repurposing promising drug candidates for ALS cure efforts will be the first use of these funds

After my dad died, I met a company with a promising drug for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease that does well in preclinical animal models and is non-toxic in humans. I'm really excited about how this drug works to protect neurons and tamp down dangerous immune cells in the brain. I have connected this company with my dad's ALS doctor-doctor so she can test this drug on ALS patient cells, like my dad's, and mice. If she finds that this drug works against ALS, then it will be eligible to be tested in ALS patients, and we will have gotten it there faster. This drug could work against many forms of ALS, not just C9orf72. With government funding for ALS being cut left and right, my dad's ALS doctor needs these funds to test this drug on ALS. At this time, all the money fundraised will go to this project with the exception of <10%: to cover my travel expenses to make these connections & find more repurposed drug candidates for ALS. In this way, a community can accelerate ALS research one push-up, one donation, one drug, one project at a time.

ALS and FTD are lethal neurodegenerative diseases that go hand-in-hand. A treatment that works for C9 ALS will likely work for C9 FTD, so we can strive to cure both. Non-specific treatments that work in C9 ALS & FTD, like the drug I'm fundraising to test, will likely work in non-genetic or other-genetic forms of this disease. I just wish I had the chance to try to save my dad with these approaches and protect his will to live. But he died 14 months after his foot wasn't moving properly, on the best ALS drugs the world had to offer.

We ran out of time.

In summary,

We must do better: for the patients, for those at risk, for the patients’ caregivers, families and friends. I’m dedicating my physician-scientist training to cure these devastating diseases, or die trying.

Why today? Well, today is my birthday. And these pictures are from my birthday last year which I spent with my dad, when he could only move his neck. We moved our heads back & forth together as our loved ones sang me happy birthday.

In honor of him, today, we do push-ups & fundraise!