GRAND RAPIDS – Van Andel Institute is be featured April 4 and later in the month as the Cause of the Day button on AOL.com, which is visited by nearly 15 million people daily.
AOL provides an opportunity to educate consumers and connect them with non-profit organizations that are on a mission to change the world, such as Van Andel Institute. Cause of the Day buttons average approximately 7,500 click-throughs daily.
The AOL.com ?Cause of the Day? will highlight Parkinson?s disease research at Van Andel Institute through the story of West Michigan basketball legend and Parkinson?s patient Steve Majerle.
Parkinson?s forced Steve Majerle to walk away from the hardcourt and a basketball dynasty at Rockford High School that included a state championship and a perfect 28-0 season. Thanks to deep brain stimulation surgery, Steve Majerle got back in the game this year, leading Grand Rapids Christian High School all the way to the state semifinals where they lost to eventual Class A champ Romulus.
The AOL.com feature coincides with Parkinson?s Awareness Month and enables Van Andel Institute to highlight an impressive number of Parkinson?s and other neurodegenerative breakthroughs that have followed the 2011 appointment of Dr. Patrik Brundin as Chair of the Jay Van Andel Translational Parkinson’s Disease Research Laboratory and Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Science.
AOL.com previously featured Van Andel Institute as its Cause of the Day on January 25, providing the Institute the opportunity to highlight its Pediatric Oncology Research Program through the story of Brooke Hester, a five-year-old patient fighting neuroblastoma with the aid of Van Andel Institute research. This national exposure resulted in a more than 1500 percent increase in website traffic on www.vai.org that day and more than 9,500 click-throughs on AOL.
