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DSRTF Congratulates Dr. William Mobley on Additional New Role in Colorado Institute focused on Down Syndrome

The Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation (DSRTF) congratulates Dr. William Mobley, whose groundbreaking Down syndrome cognition research at Stanford has been, and continues to be, supported by major DSRTF grant funding, on being named Executive Director of the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome at the University of Colorado Denver. According to Dr. Mobley he will assume this additional new position with a half-time, two year appointment as visiting professor in Colorado, while remaining half-time in his position as professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Center for Research and Treatment of Down Syndrome in Palo Alto, CA and continuing his ongoing Down syndrome research program at Stanford.

The Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome at the University of Colorado is now another center exclusively focused on Down syndrome, in addition to the previously established Stanford Center for Research and Treatment of Down Syndrome. As announced on Monday, significant new funding for the Linda Crnic Institute has been committed by the Anna and John J. Sie Foundation in Colorado and the University of Colorado. The addition of this new funding and center is positive and exciting news for everyone committed to the creation of new opportunities for all individuals with Down syndrome.

Since 2004, DSRTF has generated more than $4 million to fund critical new Down syndrome research, including more than $3 million to fund the research by Dr. Mobley and his colleagues at Stanford. This has led to ‘unprecedented’ success and results showing the promise for improving cognitive function in individuals with Down syndrome. Key major initiatives in the DSRTF strategy continue to include: 1) significantly stimulating and funding biomedical research that will accelerate the development of treatments to meaningfully improve cognition, including learning, memory and speech, for children and adults with Down syndrome; and importantly, 2) to fund the generation of important new research results, essentially “priming-the-pump”, to attract additional new talent and outside funding, governmental and non-governmental, to help support Down syndrome research. DSRTF is extremely pleased with the establishment of and new funding commitment to the Linda Crnic Institute at the University of Colorado, and believes this provides further important validation for DSRTF’s major paradigm-shifting strategy for Down syndrome research.

To achieve the ultimate goal of accelerating the development of effective new therapies to significantly improve cognition in all individuals with Down syndrome, DSRTF recognizes that it will require the continued engagement and expanded funding of many additional biomedical researchers and physicians with expertise in numerous multi-disciplinary fields, involving fundamental research as well as drug discovery and development, including preclinical and clinical studies, at many institutions and organizations across the US and even internationally. Since September 2007, DSRTF has awarded more than $1.24 million in new research grants to support the cutting-edge Down syndrome research of more than a dozen distinguished investigators, in addition to Dr. Mobley, at multiple institutions across the country, including Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, and the University of Arizona.

DSRTF is strongly dedicated to significantly increasing its annual research grants funding by continuing to build close partnerships with individuals and groups within the Down syndrome community and beyond. It is one of DSRTF’s major goals that these partnerships will further accelerate the development of effective new therapies to improve cognition and create new opportunities for all individuals with Down syndrome.