Friends of FSH Research

There is no cure or treatment strategy for patients with FSH Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD). This debilitating disease slowly consumes skeletal muscle, robbing people of the active, healthy, and independent years of their lives. For over a decade, Friends of FSH Research (Friends) has supported research studies that have contributed to our understanding of FSHD, offering the hope of treatment to the over 500,000 people living with the disease.

Friends was started by the family and friends of Terry and Rick Colella, whose son has FSHD. The goal of the organization was to stimulate research on FSHD in the Pacific Northwest. By reaching out to investigators at the University of Washington, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, we were able to provide seed monies for projects that would ultimately attract over $15 million dollars in funding.  Although there now exists an impressive number of researchers supporting FSH research, there are even more projects that need to be funded in order to accelerate the goal to develop a treatment or cure.