The donation gathered at that "Ice Bucket Challenge" wearing ice water will lead to great results

ByAnthony Quintano

IntractableAmyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)In the name of calling for donation to the research ofIce Bucket ChallengeWhat became popular worldwide in the summer of 2014. Although there was a critical opinion such as "It is just a temporary stupid tragedy" or "an unscrupulous at an event of patient toppling", there is a possibility that it will lead to ALS therapy greatly thanks to the big money gathered at the ice bucket challenge It was revealed that some research results have come out.

NEK1 variants confer susceptibility to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: Nature Genetics: Nature Research
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.3626.html

The ALS Association
http://www.alsa.org/news/media/press-releases/significant-gene-discovery-072516.html

The basic rule of the ice bucket challenge is to choose between two choices: "Donate to ALS research" or "Bucket with ice water in your head". Those who donate or wear iced water can then appoint a person who makes an ice bucket challenge. The ice bucket challenge became a worldwide fashion, as many celebrities who tried the ice bucket challenge appeared.

In the following article, the appearance of so-called people such as Microsoft's Bill Gates, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Larry Page, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Apple's Tim Cook, singer Lady Gaga You can see. By the way, all celebrities are donating on ice water as well.

Celebrity celebrations in which celebrities wear ice, such as Google, Apple, MS, FB CEO and Horiemon ongoing - GIGAZINE


However, against the ice bucket challenge that became a big boom, there was a critical opinion that "Is not it a purpose to support intractable diseases but rather just wanting to make a fool of stupidity and not unscrupulous?" Or " We should welcome the situation that attention is paid to intractable diseases and donations are invited ", but various opinions were issued, but when the boom converged it was totally forgotten.

By the way, comedian entertainer Hitoshi Matsumoto is doing a black humor tweaking that "ridiculous after party" in the summer of 2016 when the world completely forgot the ice bucket challenge.

Is it hot?
Do you even do an ice bucket challenge?

- Hitoshi Matsumoto (@ matsu_ bouzu)July 1, 2016

Meanwhile, a research team at the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine, in the MinE project using the research cost of 1 million dollars (about 100 million yen) donated by the ALS Association, is "NEK 1" which shows susceptibility to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis It was discovered in the scientific journal Nature that he found a gene called "Nature". By locating this causative gene NEK1, it is expected that there is a possibility that it will lead to the development of therapies for genetic and acquired ALS. The research team at the University of Massachusetts stated that the ability to collect as many as 7,155 ALS patient samples using the contributions distributed from the ALS Association led to the identification of causative genes.

In the ice bucket challenge, donations of 15 million dollars (about 1.5 billion yen) from all over the world gathered, of which 67% were distributed as research subsidies to ALS research institutes. Since many ALS research institutes other than the Massachusetts university are receiving donation distribution, it seems that there is a possibility that ALS therapy development will be advanced by the money gathered by the ice bucket challenge in the future.