D-Lee

Project 3000.

I'm sure you all remember, as I do, the tearful news conference Derrek Lee held in September 2006 when he first discovered that his daughter Jada had Leber's Congenital Amaurosis, a disease that will eventually blind her.

As D-Lee himself told those of us assembled for a fundraiser last night in Scottsdale, when he and his wife Christina saw Dr. Edwin Stone at the Carver Center at the University of Iowa to find out what sort of treatments were available for Jada, he also said, "What can we do to help?"

Of that question was born Project 3000, which aims to identify the 1-in-100,000 (of the USA's 300 million people, that would make 3000, thus the name) people who have this disease, then eventually find a cure. The project also aims to help find treatments for other eye diseases, including macular degeneration, which affects about one-third of all people over age 75, and retinitis pigmentosa.

D-Lee