Bellevue foundation donates $6 million to UW for Alzheimer’s research, medicine| Tom Ellison lost three family members to disease

The Bellevue-based Ellison Foundation has made the largest donation for Alzheimer’s disease research and treatment development in the University of Washington’s history, putting its research center $6 million closer to its $20 million goal.

By Brandon Macz • April 2, 2015 12:13 pm
University of Washington Medicine’s Dr. Thomas Grabowski
University of Washington Medicine’s Dr. Thomas Grabowski

The Bellevue-based Ellison Foundation has made the largest donation for Alzheimer’s disease research and treatment development in the University of Washington’s history, putting its research center $6 million closer to its $20 million goal.

The donation is particularly significant to foundation cofounder Tom Ellison, whose grandmother, father and later his uncle died from Alzheimer’s. The Ellison Foundation gave UW $5 million last year for stem cell research.

“This is a $20 million project. The Ellison Gift is a very important contribution to that budget,” said Paul Ramsey, UW Medicine CEO. “There will be federal funding that will help and then we’ll be seeking other philanthropy also.”

Ramsey said the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center has a well-developed plan for using exome sequencing — sequencing all protein-coding genes in a genome — to better understand how diverse forms of the disease can be treated and develop and test precision medicines.

“This donation will help support the work of doing the screening, of testing the drugs, of developing the team of people to do the interpretation of the tests,” Ramsey said. “We hope this gift will be one of many to support the work in this important area.”

Ellison Foundation Director Bob Hurlbut said the foundation focuses on medicine, education and human services, and has historically made its largest donations to medical advancement since 2003. He said it makes sense for Tom Ellison to want to support a disease genetics say could afflict him or other family members in the future.

“From a genetic standpoint, there are a  lot of sons and daughters who are on the cusp of baby boomers who have thought the same thing,” Hurlbut said, adding more than 13 million people in the United States are estimated to have the disease by 2050. “My mom had Alzheimer’s.

“There is no one magic pill that will give you your memory,” Hurlbut added, but being able to detect signs of Alzheimer’s earlier in a person’s life will allow treatment to start sooner and hopefully keep the symptoms at bay.