The Musette and Allen Morgan, Jr. Foundation for the Study of Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC), headquartered at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center (www.pscfoundation.org), recently received a $20,000 contribution from PSC Partners Seeking a Cure (www.pscpartners.org). PSC Partners Seeking a Cure is a national PSC patient support organization founded in 2005 to raise funds to research the causes and cure for PSC, promote PSC and organ donation awareness and provide education and support to PSC patients and their families.

The funds will be used to support the Morgan Foundation’s STOPSC (Studies of Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis) registry, which will include clinical information on children and adults with PSC, autoimmune hepatitis and PSC/autoimmune hepatitis overlap syndrome. The registry will house a database of information, tissue and DNA samples, facilitating collaborative, hypothesis-driven, multi-center research on this rare disease. Le Bonheur is one of 12 major North American medical centers encompassing 18 pediatric and adult hepatology programs participating in the registry. PSC Partners Seeking a Cure has targeted their funding to support the DNA repository. The registry is set to go online in early 2007.

Dr. Dennis Black, Co-Director of the Morgan Foundation, Le Bonheur Vice President for Research and Director of the Children’s Foundation Research Center, expressed gratitude to PSC Partners Seeking a Cure, “We are delighted that we have been able to forge a strong collaborative relationship with PSC Partners Seeking a Cure. Our respective organizations have a common goal to find a cure for this devastating disease. We look forward to a synergistic relationship and a cure for PSC.”

Ricky Safer of PSC Partners Seeking a Cure said, “We are ecstatic that the Morgan Foundation has worked so hard to establish the STOPSC registry, which brings us all many steps closer to finding a cure for this disease. All our members are hopeful that together, we can accomplish this goal.”

PSC is a rare disease that causes the bile ducts inside and outside of the liver to become scarred, narrowed and eventually blocked. Often the only effective treatment for this fatal disease is a liver transplant. While children are waiting for a liver transplant, they suffer with such symptoms as severe abdominal pain, jaundice, growth failure and a profound lack of energy.

The Morgan Foundation, founded in 2004 by Musette and Allen Morgan, Jr., sponsors and facilitates basic and clinical research to discover new treatments and ultimately a cure for primary sclerosing cholangitis.