Bill Gate’s Newest Mission: Curing Alzheimer’s

We learned today that Bill Gates is personally investing $50 million to help fund research to find a treatment for curing Alzheimer’s disease.

“It’s a terrible disease that devastates both those who have it and their loved ones,” the philanthropist wrote Monday on his blog. “This is something I know a lot about, because men in my family have suffered from Alzheimer’s. I know how awful it is to watch people you love struggle as the disease robs them of their mental capacity, and there is nothing you can do about it. It feels a lot like you’re experiencing a gradual death of the person that you knew. My family history isn’t the sole reason behind my interest in Alzheimer’s. But my personal experience has exposed me to how hopeless it feels when you or a loved one gets the disease.”

Gates said he is investing his own money in the Dementia Discovery Fund, a private-public partnership to search for a solution, also noting that he, personally, is not without his own concerns. “Anything where my mind would deteriorate, I have to say I would be disappointed thinking about complex problems,” he told CNN. “I hope I can live a long time without those limitations.”

This is progress. Read more on his blog post, titled “Why I’m Digging Deep Into Alzheimer’s.”