The Johnnie Walkers Are Rolling on Sunday, May 21, 2023.

 

Due to your boundless generosity, The Johnnie Walkers are $1 million team. We have cumulatively raised over $1 million to fund cutting edge MS research at Northwestern. Dr. Steve Miller's lab is using nanotechnology to stop the progression of MS in its tracks and to repair the damage that has already been done.
This will get a million people with MS in the US back on their feet.
We are making a difference!

Join us and be part of our team; walk and donate on Sunday, May 21st in Lincolnshire.  At 10:30 am, we will start a 4 mile neighborhood walk, followed by an afternoon of camaraderie and a backyard picnic (sunny and warm this year, please!).

There are three options to donate:

 Donate online: Miller Multiple Sclerosis Auto-immune Disease Research HERE

Send me a check made out to Northwestern University and mail to:

Bob Gregory

10 Londonderry Ln.

Lincolnshire, IL 60069

or

If you use your brokerage firm or a donor advised fund , please note that your gift is for the Bob Gregory MS Walk and should be mailed directly to:

MaryPat Mauro

Director, Major Gifts

Northwestern University

Development & Alumni Relations

420 East Superior Street

Rubloff 9th Fl.

Chicago, IL 60611

The Johnnie Walkers Are Rolling on Sunday, May 22, 2022

 

Join us and be part of our team; walk and donate on Sunday, May 22nd in Lincolnshire.  At 10:30 am, we will start a 4 mile neighborhood walk, followed by an afternoon of camaraderie and a backyard picnic (sunny and warm this year, please!).

There are three options to donate: 

Donate online: Miller Multiple Sclerosis Auto-immune Disease Research HERE

Send me a check made out to Northwestern University and mail to:
Bob Gregory
10 Londonderry Ln.
Lincolnshire, IL 60069

or

If you use your brokerage firm or a donor advised fund , please note that your gift is for the Bob Gregory MS Walk and should be mailed directly to:

  MaryPat Mauro
 Director, Major Gifts
   Northwestern University

     Development & Alumni Relations
 420 East Superior Street
 Rubloff 9th Fl.
 Chicago, IL 60611

The Johnnie Walkers Are Unstoppable

Sunday, the 17th, was our annual MS Walk raising funds for cutting-edge research on MS damage repair at Northwestern University.

While I missed the camaraderie of walking together, I was heartened by the social distancing walks the Johnnie Walkers did across the country, including Adele, Duncan & Pat Gregory in Chicago, Ed Stern & Teri Nimmons in Maryland, Camille & her grandkids in PA, Janet & Fred Kunz in Chicago, Doug deMarrias in NJ, Cathy & Tim Kendrick in NC, Fred Canavan (he rowed) in NY, Dave Herman in NC, John Guidone in NC, Gloria Lewis in NJ, Al Rausa (twice) in Emerson, Bob Bazarian in PA Karin Novotny swam 4 miles in FL, Mindy & Wayne’s dogs took them for walk in NY, Gail & Yale Kaplan power walked Maryland and Kay Hoogland crossed the finish line despite the fact that The Ogden Marathon was canceled
.

It’s not too late to donate online HERE

I am very grateful to all of you… And this is one step closer to getting out of this wheelchair.

Adele, Pat and Duncan

Cathy and Tim

Fred

Doug

Kay

Doug's Route

Camille

Dave

Terri and Ed

Janet and Fred

John

Mindy and Wayne

Bob

The Johnnie Walkers Are Rallying for the Virtual MS Walk on May 17th

I’m guessing it’s no surprise to any of you that I have to cancel the walk part of this year’s MS Walk scheduled for May 17^TH. It’s my favorite weekend of the year but we’re living through some social distancing unprecedented times.

However, our dedication to discovering the cause and cure for MS is not on hold and we continue to help fuel the momentum of the  collaborative work of Northwestern’s  Drs. Steve Miller & Brian Popko.

 So, please donate to this year’s “Walk”. Your support means just as much as it always has.  There are three options to donate:

• ·        Contribute online HERE. We are funding The Miller Multiple Sclerosis Auto-Immune Disease Research Protocol.
• ·        You can send a check to me at the address listed to the right. Please make the check out to The Northwestern Feinberg School Of Medicine.
• ·        If you use your brokerage firm or a donor advised fund, please note that your gift is for the Bob Gregory MS Walk and should be mailed directly to:
  MaryPat Mauro, Director, Major Gifts, Northwestern University
  Development & Alumni Relations, 420 East Superior Street, Rubloff 9th Fl.,
  Chicago, IL 60611

Are our donations making a difference? In the past year:

Dr. Popko relocated from University of Chicago to Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University which will make their collaboration much easier now that both are at the same institution.

• ·        Cour Pharmaceuticals used Drs. Miller & Popko’s approach to complete a highly effective phase 2 clinical trial in Celiac Disease (another autoimmune disease) and are currently planning clinical trials in MS patients using the same.
• ·        Thanks to the data derived by research made possible through our fundraising, they also received two NIH grants examining therapies using tolerance in combination with myelin repair agents.
• ·        They co-authored a paper on an offshoot of a specific drug, guanabenz, that was identified by The Myelin Repair Foundation that we funded in years past.
• ·        Dr. Miller published a paper in collaboration with Clene Pharmaceuticals describing the use of gold nanocrystals to induce remyelination
• ·        Dr. Miller and Popko are currently preparing a manuscript describing the myelin repair inducing properties of digoxin, a repurposed drug which already has FDA approval for use in heart patients

       We are making a difference!

The 2019 Johnnie Walkers Are Rolling Again on Sunday, May 19th

Every year a group of family and friends gather to walk 4 miles, enjoy each others company and a backyard barbecue and raise a little money. A big part of our team who can't make the actual physical walk, donate generously by mailing a check or contributing online through the links on this page. Every year we have been able to send a check of greater than $30,000 to our beneficiaries. We are once again funding the work of Dr. Steve Miller at Northwestern and Dr. Brian Popko at the University of Chicago in their quest to use nanotechnology in pursuit of immunological tolerance, coupled with myelin repair agents. This is the cutting-edge of MS Research. The science is fascinating. Please see below and link to Dr. Miller's WGN interview HERE.

What else is fascinating is the wonderful people who make up the Johnnie Walkers. From unconditionally supporting family, great neighbors, bonded college friends, various loyal work-related friends, dedicated church friends, Chicago friends where we went from Friday night cocktails to weddings to newborns to teenagers to designated drivers in the suburbs Then there are characters like Mike Lazarus who comes in every year for less than 24 hours, with a fistful of checks from the Stamford, CT medical community, whose connection with me is a as a friend of a friend who spent a weekend in the early 80’s  in Chicago and tried to see how much Mexican food we could eat and how many Cub’s games we could go to with the least amount of sleep. There are renewed Emerson, NJ high school friends. There is a little history there where I knew their grandparents, their parents, brothers and sisters and now meeting their adult kids.. They now come in a couple days early to explore Chicago.  And every year there are cherished new friends making new memories and rapidly becoming old friends. Here are some pictures from last year.

The Johnnie Walkers have come a long way since we first started participating all those years ago with Ron & Judy Anderson, Darby Anderson, Dee Schorr, Pat &  I in the freezing rain and raised a few hundred dollars.

I have a few more battle scars since however I’m still as optimistic as ever that me and a million others in the US will get back on our feet.

It’s my favorite weekend of the year!

 If you can’t make the trip, join our team by donating online through Northwestern Univ.

Or by writing a check:

Northwestern University

c/o Bob Gregory

10 Londonderry Lane

Lincolnshire, IL 60069

It was cold. It was raining. We had a blast!

As soon as we took this picture, the skies opened up and sheets of rain came down.
All 45 walkers ran into the house along with 5 Golden Retrievers & a Beagle.
Next thing we knew the food came out, bottles of libations were uncorked and the noise level of laughter climbed.
First time in the history of doing The Walk that we had no walk.
Didn't faze many as the celebration lasted well into the late afternoon and we raised more money than last year.
So grateful to the people that were here and for all whom generously donated to exceed our goal.
Save the date for next year: Sunday, May 

19th, 2019. 

It’s time to rally The Johnnie Walkers for our annual Walk on Sunday, May 20th to raise funds and awareness for multiple sclerosis research.

 Our team is working on the next breakthrough as we are continuing to raise funds for The NU/UC Tolerance Initiative. Drs. Steve Miller of Northwestern Medical School and Brian Popko of The University of Chicago are collaborating on a very promising line of research to induce tolerance of the immune system using nanotechnology to prevent “friendly fire” on healthy cells. They attach myelin proteins to biodegradable nanoparticles (myelin is the coating on nerves that is destroyed by a confused immune system in MS). 

Once this nanomedicine is injected into the blood and goes through the spleen and liver, the immune system is re-taught that healthy myelin is not an invading outside threat and should be left alone and the autoimmune cells becomes “tolerized”. Drs. Miller and Popko are also combining the tolerance protocol with co-administration of drugs that stimulate myelin repair and have found that combined treatment with both strategies leads to a remarkable ability to reverse symptoms of MS in a mouse model of the disease. Promising agents which are being tested for their ability to promote myelin repair include the FDA approved drugs digoxin (used in heart therapy ) and miconazole (an anti-fungal drug) as well as a new approach being tested in collaboration with Clene Nanomedicine which uses the administration of gold nanocrystals.  The money we raised last year allowed our researchers to complete crucial work so they could be compete for more grant money from The National  Institutes of  Health – a new NIH grant was awarded jointly to them in July 2017.

This research has the potential to revolutionize autoimmune and allergic disease treatment since you can substitute the myelin proteins for other proteins depending on the disease being targeted. Therefore you can tolerize the immune system in response to all autoimmune diseases including type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Celiac disease and lupus. Additionally, you can control severe allergies, including to peanut and cat dander and even eliminate organ transplant rejections. So, our great philanthropic endeavors will benefit many people we know and love that fit into these expanded categories. Dr. Miller’s company, Cour Pharmaceutical Development Company in collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceuticals began an FDA-approved phase 1 clinical trial in celiac patients who are being treated with nanoparticles containing gliadin (the major protein component of gluten) to re-establish tolerance and hopefully stop this widespread disease.

Join us and be part of our team; walk and donate

If you can’t make the trip join our group by donating online through Northwestern Univ..

Or by writing a check:

Northwestern University

Memo: CATalyzer project

c/o Bob Gregory

10 Londonderry Lane

Lincolnshire, IL 60069

The Sunday Walk has morphed into a fun weekend. Our out of town team members come in early. These include our perennial All-Star, Mike Lazarus, from Connecticut, a number of my classmates from the class of 1974 Emerson NJ high schhigh schoolhigh school, my sister Cathy and brother-in-law Tim from Charlotte and my daughter, Christine, parachuting in from Bogotá.