UMass Medical School is mourning the loss of former Gov. Paul Cellucci, who died on June 8 from complications of ALS. UMMS Chancellor Michael F. Collins, who announced Cellucci’s death at the request of his family, spoke to the Associated Press, the Boston Herald, the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, the Boston TV stations and numerous other news organizations about Cellucci’s commitment to the UMass ALS Champion fund, which he helped launch in 2011 to fund research into a cure for the disease that took his life. To date, the fund has raised nearly $2 million to support work in the UMMS lab of world-renowned ALS researcher Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, who was Cellucci’s physician.
“He won every race he ran, all the way up to governor,” Chancellor Collins told the Boston Herald.
“But he wanted ALS research, not politics, to be his legacy. Even though he had an extraordinarily challenging diagnosis, he was on the phone, raising funds. He wanted to do whatever he could to contribute.”
