The Foundation is deeply honored to announce the winner of our inaugural Calm After the Storm Excellence Award issued on November 30, 2021 was Kim Boudreaux, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of Acadiana in Lafayette, Louisiana. Catholic Charities of Acadiana is now the official disaster response agency for the Diocese of Lafayette. Care for the sacred gift of all human life, especially the most vulnerable. These values define this organizations culture and guide their hard work. By embodying these virtues Catholic Charities continues to be aligned with Catholic Social Justice Teachings and capture the unique spirit in which they operate. As Executive Director, Ms. Boudreaux heads up the Acadiana Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster - AVOAD - and fosters efficient, streamlined service delivery to people affected by disaster, while eliminating unnecessary duplication of effort through cooperation, communication, coordination and collaboration in the four phases of disaster - preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation. Pictured is Ms. Boudreaux being presented with the award by Brown Foundation representative Becky Hunter and her husband, Lake Charles mayor, Nic Hunter.

Aging is the biggest risk factor for most human diseases. Individuals age at different rates, and even specific cells and tissues within a person age differently. This depends on intrinsic properties, including genetics and where cells are in the body, and extrinsic factors, like exposure to environmental toxins and pathogens. The Brown Foundation of course worked with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in our 2021 Healthy Ageing Program, and the Molecular and Cell Biology Lab of Martin W. Hetzer, PhD received our top prize of $100,000 in December of 2021. Dr. Hetzer is trying to understand the role of the vascular system in healthy aging. Cerebrovascular pathologies (e.g., microinfarcts, hemorrhage, atherosclerosis) have been associated with cognitive impairment and dementia during normal and pathological aging. The Salk has recently found that vascular endothelial cells (VECs) that form blood vessels of the brain, referred to as blood brain barrier (BBB), are extremely long-lived. Dr. Hetzer’s approach will recapitulate key features of human vascular degeneration during physiological aging and AD, and will identify novel biomarkers that can be exploited to develop future therapeutics modulating the vascular function.

Scripps Research advances scientific understanding, educates the scientists of tomorrow and impacts human health across the globe. Scripps research is science changing life and we at the Brown Foundation were so pleased this prestigious organization that competed in our 2019 Oncology Program was again competing in one of our basic science programs – this time our 2021 Healthy Ageing Program. After a competitive selection process and numerous interviews, the Foundation selected Mia Huang, PhD - Assistant Professor, Molecular Medicine – as our first place winner and principal investigator overseeing how the $100,000 grant award we issued to Scripps Research in December 2021 would impact the world. For every individual during the natural progression of ageing, cells of the musculoskeletal system deteriorate, manifesting as pain or loss of mobility. Muscle satellite stem cells reside in mature muscle and have the capacity to repair decaying muscle tissue; however, they normally remain quiescent and are not activated during the ageing process. Understanding the molecular regulators that govern quiescence and activation could lead to strategies to mobilize these muscle stem cells during ageing. However, many of these molecular regulators remain obscure, hindering the potential of muscle stem cells for regenerative medicine. The Huang Lab seeks to decode the molecular messages used by muscle satellite stem cells that influence quiescence and activation. Armed with the latest technological advances to characterize glycans and study their function, Dr. Huang aims to determine the language of glycans in muscle stem cells, thereby unlocking the potential for therapeutic intervention. The translation of these basic research discoveries in muscle cell biology could help preserve lean muscle mass, strength and mobility with age, ultimately transforming the quality of later life whilst also taking the burden of elderly care off families and medical providers.

With a focus on personalized medicine, National Jewish Health (NJH) researchers are looking at environment-gene interaction and making strides in predicting, preventing, treating and tracking many diseases. Known for translating the lessons of basic science and applying them to human diseases, NJH attracts world-class researchers who conduct leading-edge scientific investigations. 2021 marked the first year NJH competing in one of the Brown Foundation’s basic science programs and we were so pleased to issue a first place award of $100,000 in December of 2021 under the supervision of Russell Bowler, MD, PhD as principal investigator for his project: The Influence of Aging and Environment on Changes in the Human Metabolome. During the competition we learned that the human metabolome consists of thousands of small molecules .. amino acids, carbohydrates, hormones, lipids, etc .. that reflect the overall health of the individual. While it has previously been shown that age has important effects on the metabolome, there are no longterm studies of exactly how an individuals metabolome changes with age, particularly in older individuals who are healthy from a clinical perspective and who have had CT scans and lung function studies. Therefore, while human lung function dramatically declines with aging, little is known about whether and how the metabolome can be used to assess aging-related diseases, including rapid aging-associated loss of lung function. The study Brown Foundation is funding will examine changes in the metabolome in each of 7,000 healthy individuals, who range in age from 55 to 90. Some are smokers and some have never smoked, and all have been phenotyped for key aging-related diseases, such as COPD, osteoporosis and coronary disease.

LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge puts science to work for a healthier Louisiana, so they were a natural organization for us to invite to compete in the Brown Foundation’s 2021 Healthy Aging Program. A world research leader right here in Louisiana, the Pennington’s mission is to discover the triggers of chronic diseases through innovative research that improves human health across the lifespan. Congratulations to Candida Rebello, PhD, RD for her selection as the first place winner out of Pennington following the competition. We are certain the $100,000 under her direction as principal investigator shall be well utilized. The first aim of Dr. Rebello’s work is to identify in hASC, the peak time of PPARγ protein expression, whether PPARγ is phosphorylated at serine 273, and the components of the PPARγ regulatory complex, following NRBC treatment. The second aim is to elucidate the mechanisms by which NRBC acts in the brain to regulate food intake and body weight in mice using electrophysiologic approaches. Advances in our understanding of the transformation of adipocytes from fat storage to fat burning cells that modulate whole-body insulin sensitivity are limited by the absence of safe mediators of these effects in humans. This research will facilitate an understanding of the brain and peripheral mechanisms that safely activate an anti-obesity and anti-diabetes program to promote healthy aging.

Vanderbilt prides itself on being a preeminent global research university whose faculty are recognized for path-breaking research and innovative leadership in higher education, the Brown Foundation was honored to have such an institution competing in our 2021 Healthy Aging Program. Congratulations to James Dewar, PhD and his entire team for winning the Foundation’s first place award in healthy aging for the contest at Vanderbilt University. In September of 2021, the Brown Foundation issued a $100,000 first place research award to Vanderbilt with James Dewar, PhD as the principal investigator to apply toward the development of a biochemical system to study cellular aging. Telomeres are molecular structures that ordinarily protect chromosome ends but this activity is compromised by repeated cell divisions, resulting in cellular aging. We are currently limited in our ability to study telomere defects or target telomeres with therapeutics because cellular approaches to study this process are laborious and time consuming. To address this limitation, Dr. Dewar will develop a revolutionary biochemical system that will allow for rapid and detailed interrogation of telomeres and support high-throughput screens for small molecules that can modulate telomere function.

K-12 education programs across the country have continued to be impacted by COVID-19 throughout 2021. Summer camps, in particular, have struggled to hold in person events and though the Brown Foundation issued $117,500 in grant awards out of our 2021 Summer Camp Program, several of our partner organizations have had to request roll over funding into 2022 due to the delta variant shuddering their plans for in person camps in to the summer of 2022. That said, we are pleased to announce our Summer Camp Program has been renewed for 2022 and we are optimistic that 2022 will not see the disruption we experienced in this program in both 2020 and 2021. Interested and qualified K-12 summer camp programs with more than four years of operational history should have their applications turned in to the Foundation by Monday, January 31, 2022, please visit our education department page.

Our oldest and most prestigious program at the Brown Foundation is our Service Learning program. Traditionally, our in person service learning celebration held at the Pontchatrain Center in Kenner hosts upwards of 1,400 eager teachers and students looking to partner with the more than 50 local charities staffing the event tables. Though COVID-19 has sadly resulted in us canceling our in person celebration in both 2020 and 2021, our program has continued to aid teachers and schools located in and around Jefferson Parish that wish to incorporate service learning with an outside service partner into their curriculum. Through October of 2021 we have issued an aggregate of $243,480 in awards to forty-two (42) different schools for the 21/22 school year. We are enthusiastically accepting applications now for the 2022/23 school year, please visit our education department page.

For more than two decades the Brown Foundation has proudly supported various research programs at MD Anderson Cancer Center. While conducting numerous interviews of prospective principal investigators for our 2021 Healthy Aging Program at MD Anderson, the Foundation learned of the potentially revolutionary work of New Orleans native Joya Chandra, PhD in the Department of Pediatrics at MD Anderson. In September of 2021, the Foundation issued a $100,000 grant out of our Oncology Program to MD Anderson in support of Dr. Chandra’s efforts in designing interventions to promote healthy cardiometabolic aging in pediatric cancer survivors. Dr. Chandra proposes to use a transgenic mouse model which can track and eliminate senescent cells to pinpoint a role for anthracycline induced senescence as a contributor to cardiac damage, and to test timing and efficacy of energy balance interventions. Data generated from this study will inform clinical trials for pediatric cancer patients which we hope will prevent premature cardiometabolic aging.

In September of 2021, the Brown Foundation issued an aggregate total of $272,424 in grants to 21 different organizations out of our SupportSTEM program. Since we launched this forward looking program in 2018, we have issued $983,943 in total awards out of our SupportSTEM program for STEM curriculum implementation or STEM instruction support for K-12 schools. In 2021, awards under this program ranged from as little as $4,253 to the University of Louisiana Lafayette for their “GEAUX PALEOS: Providing Access to Linked Educational Opportunities in Science” program to our maximum award amount of $20,000 that was issued to organizations such as Archbishop Chapelle High School in the Brown Foundation’s home town of Metairie for their Project Lead the Way Engineering program. The Foundation is pleased to announce that we have renewed this program again for 2022 and we are enthusiastically accepting applications for same. Please visit our education department section of this website for more information.

On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana as a deadly and destructive Category 4 hurricane causing catastrophic wind damage and flooding, resulting in an estimated $50 billion of damages as it tour a path from Louisiana to New England. Despite the Brown Foundation’s physical campus being without power and completely inaccessible for more than a week, our Emergency Response Program was issuing recovery awards just three days after landfall. The first award was issued to Rebuilding Together New Orleans (RTNO) in the amount of $100,000. The southeast Louisiana community is resilient but we know that a disaster can’t end until everyone is home safely. This $100,000 emergency grant award will help RTNO repair homes, revitalize communities, and rebuild lives. The affiliation that RTNO has with Rebuilding Together gives RTNO the immediate access to a national network of affiliates across the country, without the corresponding overhead costs. For this reason, every $1 donated to RTNO converts into more than $4 in assistance, giving our $100,000 grant award the impact of over $400,000 to southeast Louisiana. If you are able to volunteer your time or skills please email info@rtno.org or call RTNO at (504)920-5722 to help SE Louisiana get back on its feet.

On September 3, 2021, the Brown Foundation issued its second award out of our Emergency Response Program to aid in the recovery from Hurricane Ida in southeast Louisiana. This second award was in the amount of $100,000 and issued to the St. Bernard Project (SBP). The Foundation and SBP have a long history together as the Foundation partnered with SBP when the organization first formed following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Since our initial award to SBP, SBP has grown and spread to many locations in Louisiana and beyond and we couldn’t be prouder of this organization. Since our first award to SBP fifteen years ago SBP has directly rebuilt homes for more than 2,140 families with the help of more than 130,000 volunteers in New Orleans, LA; Joplin, MO; Staten Island, NY; Rockaway, NY; Monmouth/Ocean Counties, NJ; San Marcos, TX; Columbia, SC; Baton Rouge, LA; Houston, TX; Brazoria County, TX; Puerto Rico; the Florida Panhandle; and the Bahamas. With its construction system enhanced and optimized through an ongoing partnership with an automobile manufacturer - which helped implement lean manufacturing processes - SBP rebuilds homes far below market rate, and carries out construction projects with much lower subsidies than traditional affordable housing models.

On July 30, 2021, the Joe W. & Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation issued its second annual Environmental Impact Award to Arthur Johnson, the chief executive officer of the Lower 9th Ward CSED. The Brown Foundation’s Environmental Impact Award recognizes organizations and individuals who have not only made an impact on the valuable environment of Louisiana but have also educated youth in the region about this topic. The inaugural award was presented to Pontchartrain Conservancy Executive Director Kristi Trail in 2020. Founded in 2006, the Lower 9th Ward CSED focuses on coastal rehabilitation, greening the built environment and increasing food security by lifting up and strategically reinforcing community-driven goals to create an economically, culturally and environmentally sustainable Lower 9th Ward. The organization’s work includes, but is not limited to, aiding homeowners with energy-saving improvements, providing access to low-cost materials, helping residents clean, restore and paint their houses, reducing blight in the neighborhood, building rain gardens to manage storm water runoff and providing information on creating a safe, independent and more resilient community for the future. The Foundation is deeply honored to issue a grant in the amount of $15,000 to the Lower 9th Ward CSED as part of the Environmental Impact Award.

The Joe W. & Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation has sponsored programs with St. Michael’s Special School almost every year from 1999 through 2021, with our most recent grant being issued in April 2021. Support for St. Michael’s Special School from the Brown Foundation has totaled $228,500 to date. Since 1965, St. Michael Special School has educated students aged six through adulthood with intellectual and developmental disabilities (i.e. those with mild to moderate disabilities, including autism, ADHD, developmental delay, traumatic brain injury, multiple disabilities, and other health impaired). The curriculum includes religion, reading, language arts, math, science, social studies, computer, creative arts, culinary science, vocational training, independent living, community integration, industrial arts, and music. The school is unique in that it provides for the development of the whole child—academically, physically, emotionally, and spiritually—regardless of his or her disability. Purposeful academics are geared to individual needs in an environment where every child participates in a variety of meaningful activities. Interpersonal skills and social responsibility are consistently reinforced. Extracurricular activities include speech therapy, music therapy, adaptive physical education, club participation based on interest, student council, sports, cheerleading, and various inclusive activities with respective peer groups.

Our 2021 Emmy Noether Awards Ceremony was held in Orleans Parish on Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at the Louisiana Cancer Research Center. Pictured above are the 2021 Emmy Noether Award medalists at the 2021 event. (Paige Delsa, May Jung and Diya Desai) The Emmy Noether Awards is a highly competitive, merit based program designed to encourage female high school students in math and research science fields. This program will identify and determine up to 10 Emmy Noether Scholars, one beging a gold medalist and two silver medalists. The gold medalist will be awarded up to $75,000 ($25,000 for each year they are in a graduate level program up to 3 years). The two silver medalists will be awarded $25,000 each for a qualified graduate level program. The Emmy Noether Scholars will join an ever growing network of young female aspiring research scientists (now 45 strong since we organized this program in 2016) and will be offered information on internship and networking opportunities. In 2020 we expanded the geographic outreach of this award to include students in Alabama, so the program currently services top performing students in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Congratulations to all of our 2021 winners!

2021 Emmy Noether Awards - Gold Medalist, May Jung: As a student at the Alabama School of Math and Science, May Jung had the opportunity to indulge in a plethora of niche math and biology electives, nurturing her interest in the field of environmental engineering. Specifically, her passion is studying the interconnections between environmental issues, epidemiology and helping provide solutions through engineering sustainable infrastructure, in hopes to remediate the preeminent environmental and public health challenges that all communities alike are facing. May spent most of her high school years knee deep in cardboard boxes and plastic bottles for the Alabama School of Math and Sciences weekly recycling drive that she coordinated, planning the Eco Webinar series with the Alabama Environmental Youth Council, writing lab reports and collecting data for her engineering research projects. Aside from Mays commitment to environmental activities, she also has a big passion for performing, which she actively tries to pursue through singing for a rock band. She also choreographs halftime dances for the cheer team.

2021 Emmy Noether Awards - Silver Medalist, Diya Desai: Diya is a graduate of Caddo Parish Magnet High School, a member of the Vanderbilt Class of 2025 where she is planning to major in Medicine, Health, and Society. She has worked on water treatment research, specifically looking at sustainable solutions to the global water crisis, and she has competed in and won science fairs up to the international level. She is the founder of Science Sidekicks, a science mentorship program dedicated to spreading the love of science to youth in the community. Diya enjoys being outdoors, hanging out with friends, and trying new restaurants.

2021 Emmy Noether Awards - Silver Medalist, Paige Delsa: Paige Delsa is a graduate of the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, a public, residential high school in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and will be attending the University of Richmond in the fall to pursue physics. She left her hometown of Mandeville, Louisiana as a sophomore to explore her passion for physics, chemistry, and computer science at the Louisiana School of Math, Science and the Arts. Being surrounded by enthusiastic teachers and dedicated students, she further cultivated her passion for science and mathematics and was inspired to pursue a myriad of research opportunities, ranging from working with an oceanography department to a materials informatics lab. While not completing research, studying for her classes, or talking with her friends, Delsa is an avid powerlifter.

The Brown Foundation issued an award of $20,000 to Jefferson Dollars for Scholars on June 4, 2021. Support for Jefferson Dollars for Scholars has totaled $427,800 since our first award was issued in 1995. Jefferson Dollars for Scholars is a chapter of Scholarship America, the largest privately funded scholarship organization in the world. There are nearly 1,000 chapters nation-wide. Like all other chapters, Jefferson Dollars for Scholars is a local, grassroots organization that gets ALL of its funding from grants, private businesses and corporates, as well as parents, friends and supporters of their cause, such as the Brown Foundation. Jefferson Dollars for Scholars is a charitable group serving schools throughout Jefferson Parish and is not a part of the school system or government entity. The mission of Jefferson Dollars for Scholars is to expand access to educational opportunities for Jefferson Parish students through scholarships and academic support. Founded in 1993, Jefferson Dollars for Scholars has awarded more than $20 million in scholarships to over 5,000 students.

Support for the Atchafalaya Terrebonne Basin is and always has been of crucial importance to the Brown Foundation. The Brown Foundation has proudly awarded grants totaling $365,500 to the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper since our partnership began in 2010. Support has always aimed to protect the Basin, its wildlife, fisheries for commercial and recreational fishing, thousands of acres of cypress forests and protective wetlands. Monitoring happens by air, land and boat to promote environmental enforcement, prevent wetland degradation, and enhance health and longevity of our Basin. Special thanks to @johnchittyimages for the stunning photograph.

The final program we developed in 2020 was a partnership between the Brown Foundation and the LSU Health Foundation; we issued a planning grant for this program in 2019 and we couldn’t be prouder to see the project surging forward in 2021. We are giving the LSU Health Foundation a grant of $250,000 to implement a new pharmacy model to be rolled out in several cities in Louisiana. The LSU Health Foundation is working with PBM Solutions to create a pharmacy that would directly help organizations, such as municipalities, grappling with rising health care costs. The nonprofit pharmacy model offers an innovative, yet simple solution—a customized on-site pharmacy—that minimizes costs, while maximizing value. The pharmacy project will entail the employment of a licensed pharmacist and the purchase, on the wholesale and generic market of low cost, high quality pharmaceutical medications which will then be sold under the health benefit plans of the institutions to the employees through the newly created non-profit pharmacy. This should save both institutions (initially the City of New Orleans and LSUHSC) millions of dollars annually from their current plans. The pharmacy will have small logistical operations on both the LSUHSC campus and City Hall and will utilize a proven prescription drug mailing model for timely distribution. Timing will include contracts and startup models occurring over the next 12-18 months at both locations.

The primary benefits of an on-site pharmacy include: (1) Convenient access to a one-stop shop for health care and pharmaceutical needs, (2) Immediate and long-term savings with lower pharmacy costs and copays, and (3) Improved health outcomes for employees over time. The Brown Foundation is enthusiastic about the LSU Health Foundation roll out this program into additional cities in the near future. “With the grant from The Joe W. and Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation, the LSU Health Foundation plans to move forward in taking crucial steps to explore, initiate and open the pharmacy in New Orleans Health Sciences Center in 2022. We are extremely proud of expanding and improving our mission related services through the utilization of cutting-edge entrepreneurial initiatives like this one,” says LSU Health Foundation President and CEO Matthew Altier (featured in the photo above along with LSU Health Foundation Chairman Henry Miller). “The LSU Health Foundation is both proud and grateful to our partners like the Brown Foundation who recognize innovation as a way to grow and help the community where and when most needed.”

After completing a successful fundamental science program in oncology research back in 2019, the Brown Foundation decided that the next area of basic research we would focus on would be the related field of healthy aging. After a significant amount of due diligence, the Foundation selected fifteen organizations to compete within the 2020 Healthy Aging Program. After reviewing a larger pool of contestants, three principal investigators from each of the fifteen research institutions received $11,000 in support of their laboratory and for professional development while the competitive analysis was undertaken by our program officers and review team. Five of the invited fifteen research institutions were selected to receive the first place award of $100,000 on December 8, 2020 to further the research of their winning laboratory, after a competitive evaluation process complete with COVID-19 compliant interviews and presentations. One of the five organizations, Tulane University, is among the oldest partners of the Brown Foundation and we were deeply honored to support at the $11,000 level, principal investigator Tracy Fischer, Ph.D. for her project: Microglial senescence in Alzheimer’s disease. Her task was to study how microglial senescence is an early event in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, and to define the senescence-associated secretory phenotype of microglia within the vicinity of and away from pathology in archived brain specimens from aged patients with and without late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The Brown Foundation was also deeply honored to support at the $11,000 level principal investigator Malwina Czarny-Ratajczak, Ph.D. for the project: Contribution of synovial fluid-derived exosomes to healthy aging of joints.

The first place winner from Tulane University, who received a total in $111,000 in grant support for his laboratory out of the Brown Foundation’s 2020 Healthy Aging Program was Assistant Professor Sangkyu Kim, Ph.D. out of the Department of Medicine and the Tulane Center for Aging at the Tulane University Health Sciences Center. Dr. Kim’s project involved using the healthy-aging index and multidimensional molecular data (multi-omics) to identify biological pathways of healthy aging in rhesus monkeys. Dr. Kim’s task funded, in part, by the Brown Foundation is to explore in rhesus monkeys the longitudinal integrative analyses of high-density metabolite (metabolomics) and gene expression (transcriptomics) date in association with the healthy-aging index. One of the primary goals of our healthy aging program is to help establish up and coming researchers with new ideas and new approaches and there are few young researchers with as promising of a future as Dr. Kim. For more information on the work of Dr. Kim please visit: https://medicine.tulane.edu/departments/tulane-center-aging/faculty/sangkyu-kim-phd

Basic research in the field of Healthy Aging was the primary focus of the Foundation’s health and science department in 2020. When considering prospective partners to invite to compete for grants in this program we knew Duke University, which consistently ranks among the very best of research oriented universities in the United States, was going to be a powerful participant. The Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development is a multi-disciplinary hub for the promotion of healthy aging across the lifespan and management of medical complexities in late life. With more than 126 affiliated faculty members from across the University and Medical Center, and millions of dollars annually in aging-related research funding, the Center is a vital national resource for the study of aging. In December of 2019 we selected our three competing laboratories and made the initial round of three grants each in the amount of $11,000 to provide planning monies for the three principal investigators to put toward the project they would present to us in the fall of 2020 with an eye toward the $100,000 first place prize. These three laboratories included: (1) The Molecular and Cell Biology Lab of Gregory A. Taylor, Ph.D. for his project Exploring a New Target for Age-Related Declines in Muscle Function and Sarcopenia (2) The Molecular Translational Medicine Lab of Virginia Byers Kraus, M.D., Ph.D. for her project Enhancing Endogenous Human Cartilage Repair to Prevent and Treat Osteoarthritis. The Foundation couldn’t be prouder of it’s $22,000 in support issued to support the efforts of Dr. Taylor and Dr. Kraus.

At the end of a vigorous review by our program officers and competing presentations from the three principal investigators, the third (3) and winning laboratory from Duke was the Biology of Aging Lab under the leadership of James White, Ph.D. On December 8, 2020, the Foundation issued the $100,000 for Dr. White’s project: “Young blood rejuvenates both mind and body." An innovative proteomics analysis may reveal how we have demonstrated the rejuvenating effects of young blood on cognition and physical function in aged mice. This project aims to identify the circulating proteins that drive this “youthful” tissue function. Dr. White’s laboratory utilizes a novel protein-labelling transgenic (MetRS) mouse, allowing proteomic analysis of young and old circulating proteins via mass spectrometry. Dr. White plans to use this proteomic discovery tool as a first step to develop anti-aging therapeutics. As background on Dr. White, he is an Assistant Professor in Medicine, Division of Hematology and Senior Fellow in the Duke Center for Aging and Human Development. He earned a Ph.D. in Exercise Science, specializing in skeletal muscle biology, at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Bruce Spiegelman at Harvard Medical School. There he worked in the areas of muscle metabolism and metabolic disease. His laboratory studies mechanisms of age-related functional decline of stem cells within skeletal muscle, vasculature and the immune system. His research program employs a wide range of investigation including in vitro cellular assays, mouse models and human studies. The overarching goal of this work is to elucidate mechanisms of stem cell function in their respective tissues and rescue/prevent age-related dysfunction. For more information on Dr. White please copy and paste this address: https://dmpi.duke.edu/faculty/james-white-phd

The Joe W. & Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation continued the matriculation of its Excellence Award program in 2020 and divided up the excellence awards into multiple categories. One of these categories – The Hope Against Hunger Award – was issued in December of 2020 to Beauregard Parish’s own Artie Carhee Hickman for her dedication to the development of Soul Soup. Soul Soup, which also won the Greater Beauregard Chamber of Commerce’s Non-Profit of the Year designation earlier in 2020, received a $10,000 award from the Foundation as part of the award. Soul Soup is an outreach ministry that provides dinner, everyday, free of charge to help those in the community who are experiencing financial burdens, low or fixed incomes or no incomes, no questions asked. Soul Soup enjoyed its tenth year anniversary in 2020 and has established dozens of partnerships throughout south-west Louisiana to further its mission under the tireless leadership and dedication of Artie Carhee Hickman.

In December of 2020, the Joe W. & Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation awarded Pontchartrain Conservancy Executive Director Kristi Trail with the inaugural Environmental Impact Award and issued a $10,000 grant to the Pontchartrain Conservancy. The funds will enable Pontchartrain Conservancy - a leader in coastal sustainability, water quality and environmental education for more than three decades - to continue its mission of driving environmental sustainability and stewardship through scientific research, education and advocacy. “I’m humbled and deeply honored to be the inaugural recipient of the Brown Foundation’s Environmental Impact Award,” said Trail. “As our region faces increasing environmental threats and challenges, we greatly appreciate the Foundation’s support of Pontchartrain Conservancy’s programs, which have never been as vital to Louisiana — and to the nation — as they are today.”

In September of 2020, the Brown Foundation issued an aggregate total of $249,135 in grants to 21 different organizations out of our SupportSTEM program. Since we launched this program in 2018, we have issued $711,519 in total awards out of our SupportSTEM program for STEM curriculum implementation or STEM instruction support for K-12 schools. In 2020, awards under this program ranged from as little as $1,409 to develop the "Science Squad" at Cabrini High School to our maximum award amount of $20,000 that was issued to groups such as the Central Creativity Foundation for their program implementing the NASA curriculum. We are pleased to announce that we will be operating our SupportSTEM program again in 2021! For more details, visit the SupportSTEM webpage inside the Education section of our site for more details. Grants under this program are growing ever more competitive year over year, which we view as a positive indication that STEM is becoming a higher educational priority across Louisiana and Mississippi.

In the face of the global pandemic multiple reports are emerging of the cardiovascular system being significantly affected in patients with COVID-19. The underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are not known. Thus, there is an unmet need to urgently and globally assess the clinical course and outcomes of COVID-19 patients with cardiovascular disease. In September of 2020 we pledged $422,823 to the Tulane School of Medicine to accomplish the following aims: (a) Determine the incidence and predictive factors of early and delayed cardiovascular complications in COVID-19 diagnosed patients using wearable health technology, (b) Determine if COVID-19 can induce sustainable cardiac structural and functional remodeling in infected patients using advanced cardiac imaging, and (c) Investigate the pathophysiological mechanisms of COVID-19 related cardiovascular complications using biomarkers and analysis of post-mortem human tissues. This pledge represents the largest gift pledged by the Foundation in 2020 and falls jointly under our emergency response program as well as our health and science program.  

We first began working with the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) as a contestant in our 2019 Oncology Program. We were so impressed with the UMMC’s basic research in 2019 that we invited the organization to compete in the Brown Foundation’s 2020 Healthy Aging Program. The University of Mississippi Medical Center, located in Jackson, is Mississippi’s only academic health science center. UMMC includes seven health science schools: medicine, nursing, dentistry, health related professions, graduate studies, population health, and pharmacy. Words alone cannot reflect how impressed the Brown Foundation’s program officers were with the three principal investigators we were evaluating from UMMC throughout 2020, so the UMMC became the only institution that received awards for its two runner up principal investigators to go along with the first price award of the additional $100,000 in research support. As of December 8, 2020, the Brown Foundation has $36,000 in grants to the Computational Medicine Research Center under the leadership of John Clemmer, Ph.D. for his project: Integrated computer model of aging physiology for disease analysis. Additionally, the Brown Foundation has issued $36,000 in grants to the Women’s Health Research Laboratory under the leadership of Nita J. Maihle, PhD for her project: Serum Proteins, Human Aging, and Disease Risk.

In addition to the $11,000 in grant support issued to each of the three initial contestant laboratories selected from UMMC, the winning laboratory for the $100,000 research support grant was the Sensory Neurobiology Lab led by Brad Walters, Ph.D. for their efforts to determine the role of Pou4f3 in age-related hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss is one of the most common long-term disabilities not only in Louisiana and Mississippi, but throughout the world. It has been estimated that as many as 1 in 5 adults under the age of 65, and more than 50% of adults over the age of 75 suffer a significant level of hearing loss. Age related hearing loss is one of the most common long-term disabilities and its primary cause is the death of sensory cells in the inner ear. In Dr. Walters’ investigations with mice, who also suffer from age related hearing loss, the UMMC has found that a gene critical for the survival of these cells, called Pou4f3, is expressed at lower and lower levels in the sensory cells with age. The Sensory Neurobiology Lab has made a conditional knockout model where they can delete this Pou4f3 gene and have found that the loss of its expression does indeed lead to sensory cell death. Dr. Walters’ hopes to determine what this gene is doing by comparing cells that are able to survive the deletion against those that become sick and die off. Dr. Walters will do this using RNA sequencing to see what downstream genes and pathways are changed when Pou4f3 is deleted. For more information about the incredible work of Dr. Walters please visit: https://www.umc.edu/som/Departments%20and%20Offices/SOM%20Departments/Neurobiology/About-Us/Faculty1/Brad-Walters-PhD.html

On September 8, 2020 The Joe W. and Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation issued its first ever Human Services Award to Pastor Charles Johnson of Way Maker Ministries. The Human Services Award is issued to one individual who personifies the displays of leadership, skill, ability and service in an exemplary manner. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Pastor Johnson has demonstrated he values service to others above his own personal interest, even risking his own health on a day-to-day basis. He fights on the front lines, enabling perseverance for those with little. Since initial efforts commenced in 1990, under Pastor Johnsons leadership and direction, Way Maker Ministries has acquired dozens of certifications and specialized licenses to help those in need and has been one of the more flexible nonprofits in the Greater New Orleans area for disaster relief efforts. Serving as a Louisiana State Certified Emergency Shelter for Women, hundreds of people have sought refuge at Way Maker Ministries over the years while tens of thousands have received meals from the pantry and food services overseen by Pastor Johnson. Way Maker Ministries has run many camps and after school programs for disadvantaged children and even has support groups for children whose parents may be addicted to narcotics. The economic impact Way Maker Ministries has had in the Greater New Orleans community is challenging to measure but readily apparent in the sheer number of people they have helped obtain employment and the tireless efforts to help people reenter society or recover from addiction issues.

In October of 2020 the Brown Foundation emergency response program issued two grants totaling $52,500 to the United Way of Southwest Louisiana in response to Hurricane Delta, the second major storm to hit the same southwest region of our state over just a six week period. Ripping tarps from already damaged roofs and scattering massive piles of storm debris in the wind and water, Hurricane Delta inflicted a new round of destruction in Louisiana communities still reeling along a path Hurricane Laura carved just six weeks earlier. After interviewing several exempt organizations responding to this catastrophe, our program officers determined that the United Way branch that services this decimated region was best suited to immediately utilize this emergency support money to restore people to their homes. We have plans to provide further aid to this specific community over the coming weeks and months.

The Brown Foundation’s 2020 initiative focusing on basic science in Healthy Aging led us to work with many elite institutions we had hitherto not provided support for. One of these organizations was Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), which received a total of $133,000 in grants out of our competitive 2020 Healthy Aging Program. CSHL has been home to eight scientists who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. CSHL is ranked among the leading basic research institutions in molecular biology and genetics with Thomson Reuters ranking it #1 in the world. CSHL was also ranked #1 in research output worldwide by Nature. We were proud to support the Molecular Biology and Neuroscience Lab of Linda Van Aelst, Ph.D. for their project, Defining New Targets Underlying Stress-related Depressive Behaviors, as well as the Structural Biology and Neuroscience Lab led by Hiro Furukawa, PhD, for their project, Decoding Molecular Representation of Memory.

After a competitive analysis of the three laboratories that were competing for the $100,000 first place prize from CSHL, our program officers selected the Cancer and Cell Biology Lab led by Jason Sheltzer, Ph.D. As everyone knows, 2020 has been a fluidic year in philanthropy where emergencies needed to be analyzed and prioritized. Dr. Sheltzer did this and changed his laboratory’s focus to gleaning why the single greatest risk factor for dying from COVID-19 is old age. Dr. Sheltzer noted the cellular features that cause an increase in coronavirus susceptibility among elderly individuals are poorly understood. The Cancer and Cell Biology Lab proposed to combine in silico and cell-based assays to identify gene expression changes in aging lungs that are capable of promoting SARS-CoV-2 infections. Dr. Sheltzer will determine whether aging influences the expression of the SARS¬ CoV-2 receptor ACE2 or other mammalian proteins that have been found to influence viral dissemination. The functional importance of these gene expression changes will be validated using a SARS-CoV-2 pseudoparticle reporter system. Additionally, this research funded, in part, by the Brown Foundation will generate and analyze populations of senescent lung epithelial cells, which may serve as a cell-based platform to investigate aging-associated SARS-CoV-2 infections. In total, the experiments described in this project funded, in part, by the Brown Foundation will shed light on why elderly individuals are at such high risk of dying from COVID-19. This work will facilitate the identification of biomarkers that can predict COVID-19 susceptibility and the development of treatment strategies to protect populations that are vulnerable to severe infections.

The Community Foundation of Acadiana hosted the inaugural Louisiana Leaders in Law Enforcement Awards on Thursday, September 10, 2020 in Lafayette, Louisiana at River Ranch. This is a project envisioned and fully funded by the Brown Foundation under our Excellent Award Program and implemented and operated by the Community Foundation of Acadiana. First of the two Leaders in Law recipients: Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Department received $25,000 because of their DMAC Program – Deputies Making A Change. The significantly successful DMAC Program is a mentoring program initiated to address the incarceration and school dropout rate among vulnerable male youth aged 9-18 in Ouachita Parish. This sheriff’s department is showing young men how to change their lives and create success for themselves. The Secon Leader in Law recipient: The 40th Judicial District Attorney’s Office of St. John the Baptist Parish was recognized and also received a $25,000 award for implementing their impactful Opportunity Now collaboration. Through education and meaningful employment offerings, Opportunity Now serves as a Criminal Justice System diversion program for low-risk, non-violent, first-time offenders by fostering intervention that is accountable to effectuate successful outcomes for individuals getting back on the right path and avoiding a life of crime. District Attorney Bridget A. Dinvaut recognizes that crime prevention, restorative justice and rehabilitation programs are vital to the public safety and future of her community in St. John the Baptist Parish. We are excited to see what is in store for Louisiana Leaders in Law, year two! The awards, underwritten by us and presented by The Community Foundation of Acadiana, aim to bolster morale, increase respect for public service, acknowledge improvements in operations, and encourage extraordinary performance among Louisiana’s sheriff’s departments and district attorney’s offices.

We wish to honor those departments who are making the most positive impacts in their communities. This year’s two recipients each received a $25,000 award to be used at their discretion to improve operations and continue to encourage extraordinary performance. Can you think of a deserving sheriff’s department or district attorney’s office in Louisiana? Let them know about this opportunity! The application process will be made available in March 2021 by the Community Foundation of Acadiana. All sheriff’s departments and district attorney’s offices from around the state are invited and encouraged to apply. Stay tuned to learn about an exciting and important expansion to this program coming in 2021!

Basic research in the field of Healthy Aging was the primary focus of the Foundation’s health and science department in 2020. Louisiana State University (LSU) is the flagship university of our home state, so an invitation to compete in our 2020 Healthy Aging Program was all but a certainty for LSU. At the beginning of this competitive grant project our program officers sorted through various contestant proposals from LSU, ultimately selecting three laboratories to represent LSU and instantly awarded $33,000 in grant support to three laboratories. In this initial round of support, we were proud to issue an award in favor of Alix DAngelo and Lucio Miele, M.D. Ph.D. for their Genetic Identification of Subjects project. They proposed first identifying a group of subjects with a known genetic risk for amyloidosis. The subjects would then be screened for pre clinical markers and potentially pathogenic proteins listed that may herald a future pathological change. The working hypothesis is that despite a genetic predisposition or other environmental stressors related to abnormal protein production, individuals who are active or very active have less amyloid genic abnormal protein production than the sedentary group. Additionally, in the initial round of support, we were also proud to issue an award in for the Assessment of Exercise and Activity Index led by Matthew Lammi, M.D. Frank Smart, M.D. and James Cairo, Ph.D. The activity index of various subjects will be separated based on the amount of METs activity performed over a given week and compared to a standard age based counterpart. Activity will not be corrected for BMI or other confounding parameters such as heart rate and maximal oxygen consumption. A subset of each of the groups will undergo cardiametabolic testing to assess their anaerobic threshold and maximal oxygen consumption in an effort to validate the selection by exercise METs.

After a rigorous competition and a round of COVID19 compliant Zoom interviews and follow up interviews, on December 8, 2020 the Foundation issued the $100,000 first place prize to neurologic assessment work of Yuhai Zhao, Ph.D. and Walter Lukiw, Ph.D. Doctors Zhao and Lukiw note that amyloid deposits in the brain have been associated with Alzheimers disease. In genetically at risk individuals, the ratio of two peripheral blood markers betaamyloid 42 and betaamyloid 40 have been associated with high brain amyloid deposits. Additionally CST3 will also be assayed. These LSU researchers have also identified microbiome changes associated with increased Alzheimers disease and increased brain amyloid plaques. In individuals with elevated beta amyloid. Gastrointestinal microbiome will be surveyed in the various groups. In any individual with elevated amyloid protein markers nerve conduction velocity will also be assessed to determine the effects on peripheral nerves. The Foundation notes that Dr. Zhao is a future elite researcher at LSU and we could not be prouder to help him establish his laboratory. For more information on Dr. Zhao and a list of his publications please cut and paste: https://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/neuroscience/faculty_yuhaizhao.aspx

Our service learning program is the Foundation’s longest standing project where we offer funds to schools via Service Learning Awards for a class, grades K-12, to link learning and intentional service to their community through an identified Service Partner. We have hitherto required our participant schools to identify their own outside Service Partner for their students to provide services to benefit others. That said, the challenges we have all faced in 2020 have been unprecedented and so – to reduce the burden on our participating schools and teachers - the Foundation has identified and funded numerous pre-approved Service Partners with suitable service learning projects that aim to be COVID-19 compliant and have sophisticated lesson plans for children of all age groups. These Service Partners include: (a) the World War II Musueum and their “Get in the Scrap” program, (b) UnCommon Construction for their rebuilding homes in NOLA and Lake Charles following the hurricanes, (c) Green Light New Orleans for their rain barrel program, (d) Louisiana Center for Afterschool Learning for connecting after school service learning with classroom work, (e) ARC of GNO for their bead sorting and recycling program. Of course, schools may still apply for their own programming with their own Service Partner.

The emergency response program at the Joe W. & Dorothy Dorsett Brown Foundation has, unfortunately, had a busy year in 2020. In response to the COVID-19 crisis and the unprecedented increase in the utilization of the services of food banks and food pantries, during the month of August we assisted ten (10) food pantries in Louisiana with financial support to help them acquire shelving, refrigeration, produce, and other needed items. Then - on August 28, 2020 - we issued a $47,500 emergency response grant to the Baton Rouge Area Community Foundation (for benefit of the SW Louisiana Community Foundation) to aid in the recovery from Hurricane Laura and the devastation it unleashed in southwest Louisiana. Hurricane Laura was one of the most powerful storms to make landfall in the United States in recorded history and the eye wall went through the center of Lake Charles – devastating this important Louisiana city. Our emergency response program officers are evaluating additional paths to aiding Lake Charles in its recovery efforts.

With over 18 million new cases in 2018 worldwide cancer is a common disease that affects, or will affect, all of us either directly or indirectly. Cancer is one of the main causes of death worldwide and was responsible for 9.6 million deaths in 2018. One of the goals of our 2019 Oncology Program was to provide support to up and coming researchers with new ideas. While investigating the trends in oncology oriented research, our program officers discovered that Institut Pasteur – one of the top infectious disease research centers on the planet – was launching a significant initiative into cancer studies. Through the Institut Pasteur’s U.S. based 501(c)3 support organization, the Foundation decided to aid in the Institut Pasteur’s efforts in launching this new initiative and added the Institut Pasteur to our 2019 Oncology Program, with the first three grants being issued on December 12, 2019 and the final grand prize award of $100,000 being issued on December 8, 2020. We were proud to support the Cellular Plasticity and Disease Modelling group, led by Han Li, Ph.D., for their project: Determining the impact of cellular senescence on postpartum breast cancer. We were also proud to support the Brain Plasticity in Response to the Environment group, led by Pauline Spéder, Ph.D., for their project: Investigating the interactions between healthy and cancerous cells. After the competitive evaluation process complete with COVID-19 compliant Zoom interviews and questioning, our grant review team selected as the $100,000 winner the Bioorganic Chemistry of Nucleic Acids group, led by Marcel Hollenstein, Ph.D., for their project: Development of Photosensitizing Aptamers for Selective Photodynamic Therapy of Colon Cancer. Delivery of anti-tumor chemotherapeutic agents and particularly of photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy (PDT) for the treatment of cancer is still a challenging task. Poor delivery of drugs is often associated with low accumulation in solid tumors and significant toxic side-effects (Nature Communications 2018, 9, 1410).

In order to alleviate these limitations, Dr. Hollenstein strives to use short DNA or RNA oligonucleotides known as aptamers to serve as drug delivery systems since these nucleic acids are capable of binding with high affinity and specificity to a broad variety of targets including cancer cells (Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews 2018, 134, 3). Hence, aptamers could accompany photosensitizers to their intended targets and improve the efficiency of the PDT treatment and to reduce undesired side- effects. Dr. Hollenstein addresses the lack of specificity of PDT agents by two different yet complementary approaches: 1. Identification of aptamers binding to colorectal cancer cells that are directly modified within their sequence PDT agents; 2. Appendage by enzymatic synthesis of numerous nucleotides modified with a PDT agent. Modified aptamers stemming from both approaches are assayed for their efficiency in PDT first in vitro on colorectal cancer cells and then in vivo on tumor bearing CT26-Luc Colon Tumor 26 mice models. Dr. Hollenstein believes this project has the potential to significantly move the field forward to an aptamer driven PDT and thus offer a novel treatment modality. In addition, this approach can easily be expanded to other forms of cancer by changing the target in the selection protocol or by changing the nature of the aptamer. Congratulations Dr. Hollenstein on winning the $100,000 competitive grant from the Foundation in December 2020.

We were deeply saddened that COVID-19 resulted in us canceling our annual Emmy Noether Awards celebration that was scheduled for June 2020, but it certainly did not stop us from running our program and selecting our winners. Grace Sun, a graduate of Caddo Parish Magnet High School, is a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Class of 2024. With a primary goal of helping other people, she enjoys conducting scientific research and community service. In the past, she has worked on ischemic stroke projects at the LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport and a placental calcification project at Tufts Medical Center during the Research Science Institute. She is also the founder of Spread the Success, a student organization dedicated to teaching underprivileged students life skills and motivating them to pursue their greatest dreams. As our gold medal winner, Ms. Sun stands to receive up to $75,000 in scholarship support for qualified post graduate fellowship studies.

The Foundation has been an ardent supporter of the Whistle Stop for over a decade. The Whistle Stop is a supervised visitation center serving children, their families, and communities in Southwest Louisiana. The center provides a safe and secure location for children to visit parents and other relatives they might not otherwise be able to visit due to custody disputes, difficult family transitions, or families in conflict. Its goal is to eliminate as much of the emotional hardship that children frequently have to endure when parents or relatives are in conflict and meet for visitation exchange. The Whistle Stop offers an environment where children can feel safe and secure, while still maintaining contact with the parents and family members they love. Our grant support we issued in April 2020 for the Whistle Stop is earmarked specifically for their on-site supervised visitation program. Over the years the Foundation’s aggregate support for the Whistle Stop has exceeded $250,000!

2020 marked the first year that we accepted applications from students in southern Alabama. Gabby Taylor, a resident of Mobile, Alabama, is a recent graduate of the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science, and an aspiring neuroscientist. During her time at ASMS, she was granted the opportunity to work as an undergraduate researcher at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, where she immersed herself in designing a novel thermal imaging device which could accurately and almost instantaneously determine the severity of partial thickness burn wounds. Gabby was selected as a finalist in the 2020 International Science and Engineering Fair, and her project abstract was formally published by the Society for Science and the Public. In the fall of 2020, Ms. Taylor will attend the University of Alabama in Birmingham on a merit-based “full-ride” scholarship, where she intends to earn a B.S. in neuroscience and gain additional research experience. From there, she plans to attend graduate school and earn a PhD in neuroscience. As one of our silver medal winners, Ms. Taylor stands to receive up to $25,000 in scholarship support for qualified post graduate fellowship studies.

Emily Bush went to Baton Rouge Magnet High School, where she graduated summa cum laudi. She conducted a study that explored anti-homeless hostile architecture and the impacts of education about hostile architecture on its public perception. Along with conducting the research, she was the president of her school’s Interact Club, captain and All District goalkeeper for her school’s soccer team, a member of the National Honor Society, and Ms. Bush also held a part-time job as a supervisor at Chick-fil-a. Emily plans to attend Texas A&M University, where she will study civil engineering. She hopes to earn a master’s of engineering and develop new eco-friendly ways for transportation. As one of our silver medal winners, Ms. Bush stands to receive up to $25,000 in scholarship support for qualified post graduate fellowship studies.

We are proud to announce that as of our most recent gift in April 2020, our funding out of our grants program for New Orleans Mission has exceeded $1,000,000. When you include our program related investments for their physical plant, our total contributions are now $2,365,000. The services of New Orleans Mission are dedicated to the rescue, recovery and re-engagement of people facing homelessness, addiction, human trafficking or abuse in the Greater New Orleans area. Today, with our assistance, the Mission is serving more people than ever before. In addition to other needed services, over 38,000 delicious hot meals are served each month to the hungry in our region. Breakfast and lunch are served daily. Dinner is served Monday through Friday. The Foundation is very proud of this partnership that began with three successful program related investments to develop the Mission’s property on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in New Orleans.

Covid-19 has been disruptive for many, but we believe it is important to run our programs as we had planned and provide the funding we committed to provide promptly and fully. To that end, in April of 2020 we released our seventh grant award to HeartGift Louisiana. Their latest grant application won a $30,000 approval from our program officers. Since 2013, the Foundation has proudly funded Heartgift Louisiana in the aggregate amount of $155,000. Children with heart defects travel from China, Jamaica, Uganda (to name a few) to the Children’s Hospital New Orleans, and return home healthy. Since 2010, HeartGift Louisiana has provided over 60 children, from 17 different countries, with life-saving surgeries they could not get at home.

The Brown Foundation’s pilot Summer Camp Program was successfully launched in late 2019 and in March 2020 we issued our first approvals ever out of this program. Grant requests submitted to this first year pilot program were incredibly competitive and we were overjoyed to see so many quality applications for camps in Louisiana and Mississippi. This program was formed with the intent of serving children who are unable to attend most other camps due to special medical needs and further focuses on programming that promotes STEM, advanced learning and leadership. The pilot 2020 Summer Camp Program awarded an aggregate total of $110,000 to nine organizations this first year. We’re proud and appreciative of these groups that are adapting to COVID-19 restrictions on planned programming, working tirelessly to still have impact on their campers. We recognize the challenges these summer camp programs will face this year with many of them having to make the tough decision to not hold their planned face-to-face overnight camps and we at the Foundation are assisting them with the one time only transition to alternate programming.

Though we at the Foundation could not have predicted how devastating Covid-19 would be to our country and local community, our program officers began tracking the global emergency shortly after New Years’ Day. By early January, the Foundation was consulting with numerous leading scientists who would be at the front lines in the weeks to come in the fight against Covid-19. As of February 7, 2020, our Emergency Response Program has released $75,000 to launch three fundamental research programs against the virus that would cause the pandemic. Tulane University’s National Primate Research Center and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology received $25,000 each. At Tulane’s Research Center, the research is being led by Jay Rappaport, Ph.D. Dr. Rappaport is a professor in Tulane’s School of Medicine’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology and serves as the Director and Chief Academic Officer of the Tulane National Primate Center. At the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, we funded research led by Erica Ollmann Saphire Ph.D. Dr. Saphire is a Professor at LJI and part of a multi-lab task force investigating the virus.

On February 6, 2020 the Institut Pasteur publicly called for financial support for their coronavirus task force. On February 7, 2020 the Foundation answered this call through our emergency response program with a $25,000 expedited gift to support the task force. The Institut Pasteur is often regarded as the top infectious disease research center on the planet. It is not a surprise to anyone that the Institut Pasteur is taking the lead in researching and understanding the coronavirus strain that is currently terrifying communities everywhere. With the whole viral genome of coronavirus 2019nCoV having recently been sequenced at the Institut Pasteur, the isolation of strains of coronavirus 2019nCoV detected in France has now been successfully finalized, in a very short space of time, using the samples taken from the first confirmed French cases. Now that the Institut Pasteur scientists have access to coronavirus 2019nCoV, they can set out to improve scientific knowledge about the virus including a. serology or screening for the disease, b. development of specific treatments, c. developing a vaccination, and d. viral pathogenesis.

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for MD Anderson, an invited participant to our 2019 Oncology Program, is the laboratory of Florencia McAllister, MD. Dr. McAllister is a physician-scientist who leads an up and coming basic and translational immunology laboratory with the goal of making discoveries that can result in effective cancer early detection, immunoprevention and immunotherapy. Her lab focuses on understanding the role of the immune system in immunosurveilance and immunoevasion and on dissecting the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate the immune responses to tumor initiation and progression with the goal of designing novel effective strategies to prevent and treat cancer. More recently, the laboratory has developed an interest on assessing the role of bacterial products in modulating cancer immune responses. The Foundation is honored to issue the award in the amount of $100,000 to further this ground breaking fundamental science. Further information about the incredible work of Florencia McAllister, MD may be found at: https://faculty.mdanderson.org/profiles/florencia_mcallister.html

Did you know the Toys for Tots program, founded by the United States Marine Corps, is supported by law enforcement agencies across the United States? The Toys for Tots program has distributed 584,000,000 toys to 265,000,000 different children in the United States since its inception. We have made gifts to support this program in Louisiana every year since 2014, with the most recent award being issued in December 2019. To date, we have proudly issued awards totaling $17,500 to the Lake Charles Police Officers Association for its Toys for Tots project.

In December of 2019, the Foundation approved its first ever grant award to the People Program New Orleans. We learned of this organization through our Letter of Interest protocols and they have been formally invited to apply to the Foundation on more than one occasion throughout the years; however, 2019 marked the first year where an application resulted in an award being issued. This non-profit offers a community of health and wellness for New Orleans area seniors and is truly one of the best kept secrets in New Orleans. The People Program New Orleans is a non-profit membership organization for persons 50 years old and over who are looking for creative ways to spend leisure time and connect with others. As a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph, currently there are almost 500 members enrolled of diverse backgrounds, ranging from ages 50 to 90. Over 100 varied courses are offered and include exercise, computer, dance, art, needlework, crafts, games, languages, music, and more. For more information on the hard work of the People Program New Orleans, please visit their website: http://www.peopleprogram.org/

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for Scripps Research, a participant in our 2019 Oncology Program, is The Brunie Felding Lab. Under the direction of Brunie H. Felding, PhD this laboratory is on the cutting edge of science with a goal of defining and targeting molecular mechanisms that control tumor metastasis. Metastasis is the main cause of death in cancer patients and if dissemination of tumor cells from primary to distant sites could be prevented or blocked after it has occurred, the mortality of patients with solid tumors could be drastically reduced, and cancer would be curable disease. Further information about the incredible work of Brunie H. Felding, PhD may be found here: https://www.scripps.edu/faculty/felding-habermann/

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, an invited participant to our 2019 Oncology Program, is The Adrienne Boire Lab. Under the direction of physician-scientist Adrienne A. Boire, this laboratory is on the cutting edge of science with the study of metastasis to the central nervous system. Her laboratory focuses on metastasis to the central nervous system (CNS), both leptomeningeal and parenchymal metastases and she employs multiple complementary approaches to identify and target cancer cell adaptations to the challenging microenvironmental constraints posed by the CNS. The Foundation is honored to issue this award in the amount of $100,000 to further this ground breaking fundamental science. Further information about the incredible work of Adrienne A. Boire, MD, PhD may be found here: https://www.mskcc.org/research-areas/labs/adrienne-boire

Though the Foundation generally requires more than two years of operational history before we consider program support, rare exceptions have been made for programing that is dealing with an acute emergency or has the potential to be revolutionary. One such case where we proudly supported an organization during their operational commencement is Café Reconcile. Café Reconcile now has a 15-year track record of success, 100 active partnerships, and more than 400 requests to support similar efforts in other communities not just in the United States but around the world. Grant support from the Foundation for Café Reconcile began in 2004 with the most recent grant of $25,000 being vetted and approved by our grant review team in November of 2019. A total of ten (10) grants aggregating to $285,500 have been approved for Café Reconcile’s Workforce Development Program over the last sixteen (16) years. With the financial backing of its supporters, Cafe Reconcile’s Workforce Development Program has successfully graduated more than 1,500 youth between the ages of 16 and 24.

These students leave the 8-week program with basic independent living skills, interpersonal skills and work skills, enabling and empowering them to successfully enter the workforce. Café Reconcile has established a sustainable model for helping disadvantaged youth achieve career success. Currently, Cafe Reconcile strives to provide: 1) youth with an opportunity to learn the life, job, and educational skills necessary for successful entry into the food service and construction industries, 2) a cornerstone for the economic recovery of the Central City neighborhood, and 3) a gathering place where people of goodwill can work together to solve difficult problems.

We at the Brown Foundation developed our 2019 Oncology Program through a pilot program we ran at Tulane in 2018 at the laboratory of Victoria P. Belancio, PhD. In December of 2019 we issued another award in the amount of $100,000 to support the revolutionary science occurring at the Tulane Center for Aging in Dr. Belancio’s laboratory, bringing our total support for her efforts to alleviate human suffering to $337,900. Dr. Belancio’s primary research interests are focused on genetic instability and cellular responses associated with the activity of mammalian retroelements. She is studying molecular mechanisms controlling the expression of and the damage from these elements in normal and cancer cells. She is broadly recognized for her original contributions to understanding the impact of retrotransposons on genome stability and disease and her first major discovery involved identification of novel mechanisms attenuating expression and damage caused by LINE-1 retrotransposon. Further information about the groundbreaking work of Victoria P. Belancio, PhD. may be found here: https://medicine.tulane.edu/departments/structural-cellular-biology-tulane-center-aging-center-circadian-biology-tulane-cancer

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute - an invited participant to our 2019 Oncology Program - is the laboratory of Irene Ghobrial, MD for her groundbreaking work in the study of Multiple Myeloma (MM). MM is a plasma cell cancer that is almost always preceded by the precursor states of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM). Improvements to non-invasive detection technologies are needed to monitor MM disease progression in order to provide early therapeutic interventions for these patients. Dr. Ghobrial proposes an integrative and powerful blood biopsy approach for early-stage/minimal tumor detection to monitor disease progression in patients with precursor MGUS and SMM. Further information about the incredible work of Irene Ghobrial, MD can be found here: https://www.dana-farber.org/find-a-doctor/irene-ghobrial/

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for the University of Florida Health Cancer Center - an invited participant to our 2019 Oncology Program - is the laboratory of Catherine T. Flores, PhD. Dr. Flores joined the University of Florida faculty to become part of the Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy in order to focus on developing novel approaches to target brain tumors. She has developed a pre-clinical platform that utilizes tumor-specific autologous immune cells to efficiently target intracranial tumors. Her research interests are primarily in determining biological interactions between various cellular compartments involved in adoptive immunotherapy. Her studies also focus on leveraging systemic toxicity of frequently practiced clinical treatments in order to further enhance anti-tumor efficacy of immunotherapy. Further information about the incredible work of Catherine Flores, PhD can be found here: https://neurosurgery.ufl.edu/faculty-staff/research-faculty/c-flores/

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for the University of Mississippi - an invited participant to our 2019 Oncology Program - is the laboratory of Dr. Pier Paolo Claudio. His laboratory’s main utilization of the $100,000 grant from the Foundation will be to further his work in assessing the therapeutic efficiency of the tumor suppressor gene p53 expressed by a human replication-deficient-adenoviruses or a conditionally replicative human oncolytic-adenovirus, delivered by ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD), in conjunction with radiation therapy (RT). Dr. Claudio hypothesizes that MBs will target the delivery of RDAds and OVs expressing p53 to human PC cells grafted in immune-deficient NOD Rag gamma mice (NRG), and that MBs/hOVs will induce a greater tumor reduction in conjunction with radiation therapy in comparison to the MB/hRADs. To learn more about the sophisticated research of Dr. Claudio please visit: https://pharmacy.olemiss.edu/bms/team/dr-pier-paolo-claudio/

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for Louisiana State University (LSU) - an invited participant to our 2019 Oncology Program - is the sophisticated work of Harry J. Gould III, M.D., Ph.D. (photo’d) and Dennis Paul, Ph.D. Dr. Gould & Dr. Paul’s work is to activate sodium channels while pharmacologically blocking sodium pumps. Thus, they believe they can selectively kill cancer cells, bacteria and inflamed neurons. In the presence of disease or injury, basic cellular mechanisms that are usually beneficial for cell function can become detrimental to an organism’s survival. Current approaches for treating cancer and disease focus on eliminating the offending agent in the hope that normal functioning will return. This approach is effective when the components of cellular function have not been changed by the disease; but in many disease states such as cancer, basic cellular functioning is altered. In such instances, the standard approach to treatment is to correct or eliminate the altered cells, e.g. chemotherapy or radiation treatments in cancer, thereby effecting a treatment. Dr. Gould & Dr. Paul propose a different approach to treating the altered cells: to use the way in which they differ from normal cells (the very features that make them so successful) against them to cause their destruction without damaging the normal cells. This is a paradigm shift from conventional methods for treating cancer that the Brown Foundation is truly honored to have the opportunity to support.

The Brown Foundation is proud to announce the winner of the $100,000 grant designated for the Salk Institute - an invited participant to our 2019 Oncology Program - is the Regulatory Biology Laboratory with Dannielle Engle, PhD. as the principal investigator. Dr. Engle’s proposal to epigenetically intercept CA19-9 for the treatment of pancreatic cancer is potentially nothing short of revolutionary. She has already demonstrated that CA19-9 is a therapeutic target in pancreatic inflammation and cancer. Instead of drugging CA19-9 itself and waiting for this high abundance target to reach elevated levels, Dr. Engle proposes to go after the elevation process itself. She will do this by identifying the key epigenetic regulators controlling CA19-9 levels in human pancreatic organoid cultures using drugs that are rapidly translatable to the clinic. In layman’s terms, Dr. Engle’s work builds upon the finding that pancreatic cancer cells use different sugars than normal pancreatic cells. She will test whether interference with metabolic pathways governing the production of these sugars will weaken the cancer cells without impacting the healthy cells. This work also considers the financial burden of a cancer diagnosis by pursuing drugs that are already FDA-approved and are also now available as generics, reducing their cost by 5- to 10-fold. Dr. Engle’s hypothesis is that preventing the elevation of CA19-9 will shut down the malignant cascade and trigger cell death in the cancer cells. For more information on the work of Dr. Engle, please visit here: https://www.salk.edu/scientist/dannielle-engle/

Scripps Research enjoys a rich history of academic and scientific achievement. Its world-class faculty and visionary leadership have partnered to create a top-ranked nonprofit biomedical research institute that translates discoveries into new medicines while training the next generation of scientists. In 2016 program officers for the Foundation conducted a site visit to Scripps Research. Though this site visit did not lead to a grant the visit left a longstanding positive impression on the Foundation and now in 2019 we have determined that Scripps Research is a perfect fit for our Oncology Initiative Program. Three lead in exploratory grants of $10,000 each have issued to Scripps Research for three world class projects.

Come back in December of 2019 to learn which of these three laboratories will receive a full grant of $100,000: 1. The Brunhilde Felding Lab – for research into modulation of tumor cell metabolism to reduce resistance to therapies, under the direction of Brunhilde Felding, Ph.D. 2. The Wendy Havran Lab – for gamma-delta T cell stimulation research, under the direction of Wendy Havran, Ph.D. 3. The Katja Lamia Lab – for research harnessing circadian rhythm pathways to suppress cancers - under the direction of Katja Lamia, Ph.D.

Ms. Dorothy Dorsett Brown spent much of her time in the beautiful state of Mississippi and a meaningful portion of her philanthropic attentions were dedicated to improving the human condition in Mississippi. The Foundation is proud to announce its first ever project with the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Cancer Center, who after careful consideration was invited to participate in our basic science oriented 2019 Oncology Initiative Program. The following three projects received, in the aggregate, $30,000 of exploratory grants in August of 2019 from the Foundation,

and one of them will be selected for a substantially larger research support award in December of 2019: 1. Demonstrate that Lfng marks both cell-of-origin and cancer stem-like cells of PDAC, ultimately leading to the identification of novel biomarkers for early detection and/or targeted therapy for pancreatic cancer, under the direction of Dr Keli Xu. 2. Development of chemotherapeutic agents to be used in the fight against leukemia: PUFAs and enhanced hematopoiesis, under the direction Dr. Yann Gilbert. 3. Gene therapy and improvement of the adenovirus as a delivery system in fight against Prostate Cancer, under the direction of Dr. Pier Paulo Claudio.

One of the most exciting activities a foundation gets to undertake is launching new initiatives. Frequently a new initiative exposes us to organizations we may have hitherto never interacted with. When that new organization is a decorated and revered world class leader in their field like the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is in oncology research, we feel truly blessed and become incredibly captivated by their programming. At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute basic, translational, clinical, and population sciences research are never far apart — physically or philosophically. It’s a tradition that goes back to the Institute’s founder, Sidney Farber, MD, who conceived of a facility where scientists in upper-floor laboratories would make discoveries that could be used in treating cancer patients in ground-floor clinics.

On August 16, 2019 the Foundation issued three exploratory grants to three laboratories with our new friends to further basic research. In December of 2019 one of these three labs will receive a $100,000 award to further support their research: 1. The Center for the Prevention of Progression of Blood Cancers (CPOP), under direction of Rob Soiffer, M.D. and Irene Ghobrial, M.D. 2. Reprogramming Immune Responses Using Long Non-coding RNAs, under direction of Carl D. Novina MD, PhD. 3. Immunotherapeutic Vaccine Strategy for Lung Cancer, under direction of David Barbie, MD (DF/HCC Lung Cancer Program); Jonathan Duke-Cohan, PhD (biochemistry); Bruce Reinhold, PhD (Mass Spectrometry); and Ellis Reinherz, MD (molecular immunology).

The University of Florida is one of the most prestigious universities along the gulf coast and is the only AAU accredited member university in Florida. The UF Health Cancer Center has a mission to prevent, detect, treat and ultimately cure cancer. The overarching goal of the UF Health Cancer Center is to improve cancer outcomes. This is, in part, accomplished by promoting research in cancer mechanisms, developing and conducting interventional clinical trials addressing the most prevalent cancers that affect patients, and improving their understanding of the determinants of cancer outcomes in rural, underserved and elderly patients.The UF Health Cancer Center is committed to the interdisciplinary basic discovery and translational research, and the pursuit of scientific endeavors that have near-term clinical applications.

It is our honor to have just issued three exploratory grants to this organization to further basic research with the following projects: 1. The development of novel pathways of micro RNA processing in gene regulation and cancer, under the direction of Mingyi Xie, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry UF College of Medicine. 2. The development of novel approaches to target brain tumors, under direction of Catherine T. Flores, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Department of Neurosurgery UF College of Medicine. 3. Understanding the biochemical activities of carbohydrate processing enzymes involved in cancer progression and metastasis, under the direction of Lina Cui, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry UF College of Pharmacy.

At MD Anderson, one of the nations top institutions for cancer care, crucial scientific knowledge gained in the laboratory is rapidly translated into clinical care. In FY18, MD Anderson invested almost $863 million in research, a 17% increase in the past five years and a substantial investment in humanity’s future. MD Anderson and the Brown Foundation have partnered with one another to fight cancer several times over the years. It took little deliberation among our program officers to unanimously determine MD Anderson was a perfect invitee to our 2019 Oncology Initiative Program. On August 16, 2019 the Foundation issued three exploratory grants of $10,000 each to three basic science projects with MD Anderson. The Foundation’s three newest initiatives to battle cancer beside our longstanding allies in the fight against cancer at MD Anderson include:

(1) the work of Mark Bedford, Ph.D. in using protein domain microarrays to evolve small-molecule inhibitors of epigenetic pathways; (2) the work of Guillermina “Gigi” Lozano, Ph.D. in identifying vulnerabilities in p53 mutant tumors; and (3) the work of Florencia McAllister, M.D., in understanding the role of the immune system in immunosurveillance and immunoevasion and on dissecting the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate the immune responses to tumor progression. At the end of 2019 one of these three laboratories at MD Anderson will receive an additional one hundred thousand dollars in support through our new program.

The Foundation couldn’t be prouder that LSU Health and Sciences was one of the nine basic research institutions to be featured in our 2019 Oncology Initiative Program. In August of 2019 the Foundation issued three exploratory grants of $30,000 to three cancer research programs at LSU.  In December of 2019, one of these three programs will be converted from an exploratory grant to a full foundation grant of $100,000 in additional research support.

The Foundation’s three newest projects to fight cancer along side LSU include: (1) the work of Hamid Boulares, PhD to develop a new and improved approach to treat/prevent inflammatory diseases that involve oxidant stress and PARP-1 activation; (2) the work of Francesca Peruzzi, PhD on molecular mechanisms associated with brain cell dysfunction caused by HIV-1 infection and on the role of microRNAs in controlling tumor growth; and (3) the work of Harry J. Gould, M.D.,Ph.D., and Dennis Paul, Ph.D. in targeted osmotic lysis (activating sodium channels while pharmacologically blocking sodium pumps).

The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is one of the world wide leaders in cancer treatment and research. In July of 2019 the Foundation proudly issued three exploratory grants of $30,000 to three laboratories at Sloan Kettering. At the end of 2019 one of these three labs will receive an additional, substantially larger, gift from the Foundation.

The Foundation’s three newest projects to fight cancer with Sloan Kettering include: (1) Genomic landscape underlying response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancers, under the direction of Matthew Hellmann, MD; (2) Defining and dissecting immune cell-cancer cell interactions in the spinal fluid, under the direction of Adrienne Boire, MD, PhD; and (3) Understanding the roles of histone 3 lysine 36 methyltransferases in regulating gene expression and in cancer, under the direction of Zhen Sun, PhD and Kristian Helin, PhD.