Using its successful Brain Donation Program as a model, Sun Health Research Institute is developing a Brain and Body Donation Program that will extend the Institute’s research efforts.

Tom Beach, M.D., Ph.D., who is senior scientist of the Institute’s Dr. W. Harold Civin Laboratory for Neuropathology and also oversees the Brain Donation Program, said expansion to a full-body donation program will allow the Institute to approach more fully its ultimate mission to study all of the diseases of aging, not just neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

“The Brain Donation Program is our academic niche,” Dr. Beach said. “It’s what makes us unique because we have a very short post-mortem autopsy rate that provides our own researchers, as well as researchers around the world, with brain tissue of the highest quality. We will use the same procedures for the body donation program, including the rapid autopsy, so we can provide high quality tissue for research of other diseases.

“By expanding our research into cancer, heart, lung and orthopedics, and with our international reputation in neurological research, in the long run we expect to be known around the world as a major center for the study of aging.”

The first area of expansion, Dr. Beach said, is already underway with the successful recruitment of the CORE orthopedics group to the area. Those physicians and specialty surgeons are collaborating with our researchers in the SHRI-CORE Orthopedic Research Labs to determine which surgical techniques and devices lead to the best outcomes for people suffering from severe joint problems.

Dr. Beach said that those who sign up for the Brain and Body Donation Program will be asked to visit the Institute annually for clinical health assessments and to provide their medical history.

Of the more than 700 area residents who had previously agreed to donate their brains to the program, more than 500 have now agreed to donate their bodies as well. As this initial community response to the Brain and Body Donation Program has been so enthusiastic, a ceiling has been reached on recruitment of healthy normal donors. However, the program welcomes inquiries from participants who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s diseases, fibromyalgia and cancer.

Institute scientists and physicians will handle all tissue procedures, including all autopsies, and tissue will only be sent to qualified researchers approved by the Institute and only after each research project has been approved by a committee of Institute scientists.

If you’d like to become a vital part of Sun Health Research Institute’s internationally acclaimed Brain and Body Donation Program, please give us a call at 623-875-6503. We’ll tell you how you can help to put an end forever to the devastating illnesses that afflict our community… as well as leave a lasting legacy to those who follow.