Dr. Khemissa Bejaoui has been working very hard at the Day Laboratory for Neuromuscular Research to find the gene that causes the disease, Hereditary Sensory Neuropathy I (HSN I), that continues in our family. This year, in anticipation that the research was getting very close to the goal, the Deater Foundation committed to pay the salary of a laboratory assistant to work exclusively on the “Deater Project”, HSN I, with Khemissa Bejaoui. Salary plus benefits for this person are $30,000 per year. This commitment is an addition to the money we have been sending to the Day Laboratory. For several years we have been contributing $16,000 per year toward Khemissa’s salary. We do not pay for equipment, supplies nor overhead for research.
Last year Khemissa wrote and received a two year $50,000 research grant from The Neuropathy Association. Next year she will request grant money from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bob Brown, Director of the Day Lab, has often expressed his gratitude to the Deater family and Foundation for their cooperation and encouragement as well as for the money we provide which helps to “leverage” for additional money from the public funding sources.
Ethan Segal, the laboratory assistant hired to work on the Deater Project, graduated with a Bachelor in Neuroscience from Amherst College.