Our Impact

Community gifts help the foundation:

1. Educate patients and families about Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD), including symptoms, testing, and living with Alpha-1.
2. Reach physicians across specialties through Uniting Doctors, so AATD is considered when COPD, emphysema, or liver disease presentations warrant testing.
3. Publish careful research education on investigational questions, including autoimmune, cancer prevention, and neurological hubs, with hypothesis labeling kept honest.
4. Grow stories and community so newly diagnosed families find peer connection faster.

Ready to give? Visit ways to give for donation options.

Our core education work centers on established AATD knowledge:

• What is Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency
• COPD and emphysema
• Genetic testing for COPD
• Medications and treatments
• Newly diagnosed resources

Helping one family find testing earlier can change monitoring, counseling, and treatment discussions for years.

Research hypothesis. Broader links to autoimmune disease, cancer prevention biology, and neurological conditions reflect Mark Egly's patent research framing. They are not established medical fact.

Impact in these areas means keeping the questions visible, labeled correctly, and connected to clinician networks:

• AATD and autoimmune diseases
• AATD and cancer prevention research
• AATD and neurological conditions
• Mark's patent overview

As a young foundation, we measure progress through:

• Growth of educational pages that answer high intent AATD and rare disease questions
• Expansion of the disease catalog patients and clinicians can browse
• Physician network engagement through Uniting Doctors
• Donor participation via monthly giving, tribute gifts, and planned giving

We continue refining public reporting as programs mature. For partnership context, see current partnerships and key research initiatives.

For decades, patients have asked why the body seems to attack itself in autoimmune disease. Mark Egly's research proposes that excess neutrophil elastase, when insufficiently restrained by Alpha-1 Antitrypsin, may contribute to tissue injury across many named conditions. That proposal remains investigational. Funding independent study and clinician education is how the field moves from unanswered questions toward evidence.

Rare disease research funding is a long game. Steady donors make education and outreach possible while science catches up to the questions families already live with.