Bannon siblings prepare for annual bike ride to end ALS
YOUNGSTOWN
Brother and sister, Breen O. Bannon and Lisa Bannon Steinmetz, leaders and founders of Crush ALS/Team Bannon, are preparing for their sixth annual 270-mile Tri-State Trek, the bike ride to end ALS.
They ride in memory of their brother, Chuck Bannon, who died in 2009 of Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis, often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s disease,” and to raise money for research to find a cure for the fatal disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
The Bannons — Breen of Youngstown and Lisa, who grew up here but lives in Glen Ridge, N.J. — and family members and friends who make up Crush ALS/Team Bannon, will make the three-day Tri-State Trek from Boston College to Greenwich, Conn., on June 27, 28 and 29.
After the death of their brother, the Bannon family vowed to help find a cure for ALS by raising money for research.
“Five years later, we still haven’t found a cure, but we really think we are closer,” Breen said.
Here’s why: ALS-TDI, the Boston-based research lab which sponsors the Tri-State Trek, is conducting Phase 2 clinical trials on the drug, Gilenya. There is evidence this drug slows the progression of ALS in some patients. TDI expects the drug to go into the next phase, 2b, later this year, they said.
Read more about the research developments and the trek, read Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.