The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation has received a $600,000 grant from The Mary K. Chapman Foundation to support aging research.
The grant will help fund age-related disease research and help OMRF recruit a pair of new scientists to its Aging and Metabolism Research Program, which takes a comprehensive approach to studying diseases of aging, including age-related muscle loss, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and arthritis.
“Aging is the number one risk factor for a number of debilitating diseases that affect our growing elderly population,” said Aging and Metabolism Research Program Chair Holly Van Remmen, Ph.D. “This gift will allow us to expand and extend our work to better understand basic mechanisms of aging and how they impact age-related diseases, such as heart disease, arthritis, age-related muscle loss and neurodegenerative diseases.”
Mary K. Chapman established her foundation upon her death in 2002 as a way to continue supporting causes associated with her personal interests. Chapman, an Oklahoma native and University of Tulsa graduate, made many of her gifts in Oklahoma and Colorado, where her late husband, oilman and philanthropist H. Allen Chapman, was born.
The foundation donates to a wide variety of charitable organizations. But as a former nurse, Chapman had a keen interest in supporting health-related causes.
As a result, said Chapman Foundation trustee Donne Pitman, the foundation is devoted to continuing Chapman’s legacy of giving to health and medical research.
“The hope is that these new investigators can generate new ideas and approaches to diseases of aging, like Alzheimer’s and dementia,” said Pitman. “These are devastating and common diseases that impact not only the individual, but also everyone around them. Aging research is a critical need for public health, and we want to be a part of the solution.”
