The mission of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation is a simple and concise summary of the reasons why we started this podcast: Research, care, advocacy. Seems like a perfect match!
Dr. Jérôme Lejeune
Dr. Jérôme Lejeune was a French pediatrician and geneticist who, in 1958, discovered the link between Down syndrome and the extra copy of the 21st chromosome. He was a fierce advocate for research and dedicated himself to finding treatments for Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities. His family established the Fondation Jérôme Lejeune in Paris to continue his research after his death in 1994.
Mark and some of the folks from the French foundation, including Mrs. Lejeune.
Our guest on this episode of the podcast is Mark Bradford, President of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, USA. I had the pleasure of meeting Mark at the kickoff event for the Race Across America. He is the Down Right Awesome Dad of seven children. We probably could have spent the entire hour discussing how one handles seven kids, but the work being done by the Lejeune Foundation is so interesting we’ll have to save that topic for another show. Mark gives us some history of Dr. Lejeune and the foundation that bears his name. We also discuss how the foundation strives to achieve the three fundamental points of its mission.
Clockwise: Mark and his family, Mark’s sons Thomas and William and Thomas (left) and a friend at school.
Rick from Down Syndrome Daily joins us again for our story of the week. This week, we hear the story of Mark Stanganelli. In a ridiculous move caused by budget cuts, Mark was fired from his $12 per week job. He was later reinstated and, when his story broke, received many other offers from generous folks out there.
Download Down Syndrome Radio, Episode #9.
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