A. Merrill Henderson Consumer Scholarship Fund

In 2010, NERGG awarded one A. Merrill Henderson Consumer Scholarship Award. This Award provides modest financial support to families in New England who have genetic conditions and wish to attend conferences or meetings around the country.

This year our award recipients travelled from Vermont to Boston to attend the National Urea Cycle Disorders Conference. Isabella's mother wrote her conference summary for us from Pittsburgh in October, as they were there awaiting a liver transplant for one year old Isabella.

She writes, “The NUCDF conference was actually instrumental in helping me and my husband choose the current path that we are on for Isabella. The conference was our first chance to not only get together with other families of children with Urea Cycle Disorders, but it also allowed us to attend lectures and panels that were presented by the foremost doctors involved in the research and treatment of UCD's. Most importantly, though, we were able to meet one on one with several doctors to discuss Isabella, her current treatment, and her future options.

We were lucky enough to spend some time with Dr. Marshall Summar, from D.C. Children's Hospital, who is the CPS-1 specialist. He was the first doctor to let us know that a liver transplant wasn't simply a down the road possibility for Isabella, but a near future necessity. His insight into her disorder and care was right on, as she was hospitalized for hyperammonemia the following week, and has been unstable since then. Luckily we have connected with the amazing team at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and we feel confident that the outlook for Bella's future is good.

The AMH Scholarship was very helpful in enabling us to attend the NUCDF conference, which has in turn given us much of the information that we needed to stay as far ahead of Isabella's disorder as possible. Thank you for awarding the scholarship to our family, and for allowing us the opportunity to attend the conference. I hope that you are able to continue to offer these scholarships in the future, as education is so key to helping families like ours understand and manage our children's illnesses.”

To apply

2009 AMH Summary

2008 AMH Summary