$7M from state puts Kelly Institute back on track

After receiving $8.8 million total from the state and a national neurological organization, UB is working to establish two major research institutes for multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases.

With a $1.8 million grant from the National Neurological Multiple Sclerosis Society, officials here are helping to plan the Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center of Excellence at the Women and Children's Hospital. Another $7 million from part of Gov. George Pataki's state budget plan will create the Hunter James Kelly Institute, which will focus on neurodegenerative illnesses as part of the new bioinformatics center downtown.

Hunter Kelly, son of Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly, died in August 2005. He suffered from Globoid-cell leukodystrophy, or Krabbe Disease, from birth. Diagnosed at three months old, Hunter was the longest living survivor of infantile Krabbe disease at the time of his death.

Krabbe disease is a degenerative disease that affects the peripheral and central nervous systems. It hinders the growth of the myelin sheath, a fatty covering, protecting the nerve fibers of the brain.

It has no cure.

Bruce A. Holm, executive director of the NYS Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, said the Hunter Kelly Institute would be located wholly within the new biotech center as a subset of its neurodegenerative disease unit.

"In particular, the institute will focus on myelin degeneration and regeneration, which is involved in various neurological diseases, including leukodystrophy, Krabbe Disease, which affected Hunter," Holm said.

The idea for the institute involved the collaboration of several key individuals.

"This project started after conversations we had with the Kelly family and some of their colleagues with the Hunter's Hope Foundation," said Holm, also UB's senior vice provost and a professor of pediatrics, OB/GYN and pharmacology.

"Jim Kelly, Jill Kelly and I then went to the governor," Holm continued, "and worked out additional state funding of $6 million in capital and $1 million in annual recurring funds to get the institute launched at the same time as the opening of the Life Science Complex on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (the new 400,000 square foot home of the Center of Excellence) in March."

Funding problems have slowed the institute's development, which was announced in 2004.

"The (UB) Foundation has committed to funding a $3 million endowed chair in our School of Medicine, plus a pledge for additional fund-raising possibilities in the future," Holm said.

The Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center of Excellence, which, according to The Buffalo News, will be one of only six comprehensive pediatric multiple sclerosis centers worldwide, will be located at the Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo.

"It's significant because it is national," said David L. Dunn, vice president for Health Sciences. "It certainly will enhance the university's reputation in research."

According to Dunn, clinical research - including clinical trials, basic scientific research, computational research, or bioinformatics - that is conducted at the hospital will aid researchers from UB since the university doesn't have its own hospital.