A family’s gift sparks hope for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research

When Max Carney and his sister Kim Carney Gill think about Alzheimer’s disease, they think about their mother—a vibrant woman who loved reading, baking for her grandchildren, and living life with grace. Today, at 85, she faces the daily challenges of Alzheimer’s. “It robs them of their dignity,” Kim says. “I know she would want us to turn this into something positive.”

That desire inspired Max and Kim to make a remarkable $500,000 gift to establish the Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker Research Fund at UW–Madison. Their generosity—and the matching opportunity it launched, supported by donors like you—helped raise more than $1 million to build a comprehensive research program led by Henrik Zetterberg, PhD, and Hartmuth Kolb, PhD.

With this next phase of blood-based biomarker research, UW scientists will expand beyond a single-disease focus to investigate several potential pathways and proteins—like TDP-43 and alpha-synuclein—that may contribute to different dementias.

Max and Kim’s generosity reminds us that when we come together, hope becomes action. “Almost every family has been touched by this disease,” Max says. “Our hope is that another family won’t have to endure what ours is enduring. The answer is there—we just haven’t unlocked it yet.”

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