Bretagne Atlantique Ambition celebrates its 5th anniversary

Bretagne Atlantique Ambition (BAA) was founded in 2014 by Mr Beaumanoir, Groupe Beaumanoir CEO, and Mr Roulleau, Samsic Group CEO. BAA's endowment funding supports medical research, mainly for brain disease, and finances young researchers in western France.

On Monday, May 27, 2019, Mr Didier Ferré, BAA President, together with BAA founder members and several researchers hosted a fundraising event for BAA sponsors at Samsic Group's head office. Around fifty guests attended the event. The twice-yearly fundraising event was the ideal moment to celebrate BAA's fifth anniversary.

So much ground has been covered in the past five years!

At the offset, Groupe Beaumanoir and Samsic Group committed to donating €500.000 to the Rennes Institute of Clinical Neuroscience with the aim of financing two neurology researchers via donations from businesses in western France. Both CEO's soon drummed up substantial financial support through their joint professional and social networks, their strength of conviction and the project's benevolent nature.

BAA: goodwill, subsidiarity and commitment

 To date, more than 30 businesses have joined BAA and raised more than €2.6 million in donations. Financial data aside, however, what makes the Fund members the most satisfied is that their donations have helped to further research for a long list of illnesses including Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, depression, Silver-Russel syndrome and Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). There is still, however, so much more to discover about brain disease and how the brain works!

New projects were announced on May 27, including the launch of epilepsy research which will be carried out in two phases:

• Absence epilepsy research: a brief loss of consciousness for about ten seconds which affects children from around four to eight years of age. Researchers will attempt to reduce the length of seizures to enable children who are minimally affected to continue normal schooling.
• The use of artificial intelligence to warn of the onset of a seizure both in children and adults. In this way, patients may be made safe before a seizure happens.

A call for funding has been launched for these research projects. The latter should be able to start before the end of 2019. The call for funding is for any new sponsors wishing to support Bretagne Atlantique Ambition and accelerate research together!