New Alzheimer’s research fund to honour esteemed late journalist Gerald Owen
Katherine (Kathy) Anderson sees a new fund created at the University of Toronto’s Tanz Centre for Neurodegenerative Disease Research as an opportunity to both honour her beloved late husband and to provide hope for a cure for the disease that took him from her.
Gerald Owen was a Canadian journalist and editor, whose esteemed career spanned decades. He was an editor with The National Post at its founding and, later, writer and member of the editorial board of The Globe and Mail.
As Kathy recounts, she fell for Gerald long before meeting him. In 1995, while serving as a writer with the satirical Frank Magazine, she reached out to Gerald via a phone call for comment on a story.
“That was our first conversation and we never stopped talking,” says Kathy. “I fell in love with Gerald’s beautiful mind – he was creative and kind. I’m an art school grad, and I connected with Gerald’s knowledge and thoughtfulness about contemporary art and culture.”
As the weeks went on Kathy, who had moved to Toronto from her native Halifax, would find herself reaching out to Gerald, asking for his opinion on stories she was working on. After meeting for lunch, Gerald would frequently join her at events she was covering as a journalist. At that point, Gerald – a graduate of U of T's Faculty of Law – had moved into journalism himself, providing legal analyses for the Lawyer’s Weekly and writing for other publications such as the Times Literary Supplement and the Chesterton Review. Later, they began working together at the not-for-profit Books in Canada, with Gerald as managing editor and Kathy working on business and circulation.
Throughout his career, Gerald was known for his work ethic and an uncanny command of the many jobs required to run a publication – including copy editing, fact checking, libel consulting and column writing.
“He had a scholar’s mien and erudition. His manifest talents allowed him to thrive in journalism, rising to the editorial board of two Canada national newspapers, The National Post and The Globe and Mail,” writes friend and fellow journalist Jeet Heer.
Yet, sadly, Gerald started to experience brain changes in his fifties. He would later be diagnosed with early-onset dementia, ultimately believed to be caused by Alzheimer’s disease.
Kathy explains how she first began to notice small changes in Gerald. He would sometimes fail to respond to people when they asked him questions. Each time, he would react with uncharacteristic coldness. Kathy now believes these moments were the first visible signs of the disease, where Gerald – usually sociable and gregarious – reacted quickly to cover it up.
“You don't understand what's happening, you just think he's tired,” Kathy says. “When he had these embarrassing moments, he would try to make it look like it was deliberate. But, of course, I realize now, it was like a brain freeze.”
In 2021, Kathy and Gerald were connected to Martin Ingelsson, a geriatrician and a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, as well as a clinician-scientist at the University Health Network’s Toronto Western Hospital.
At first, Kathy was hesitant to meet with Ingelsson, who is also a member of U of T’s interdisciplinary Tanz Centre for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, as Gerald’s disease had progressed to the point where walking had become difficult and he was experiencing anxiety when leaving their home. But Kathy hoped there might be an opportunity for Gerald to participate in a clinical trial and realized this appointment would also be important to understand the research needs for future patients. So, she arranged for two care workers to accompany her and Gerald to the hospital and back, and set off to meet Ingelsson.
“Alzheimer’s research is so urgent, it’s a devastating disease,” says Kathy. “I think that things are more hopeful now than they have ever been before in terms of finding a treatment, and we wanted to be part of the solution.”
In his research, Ingelsson works to understand how toxic amyloid proteins affect the brain of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease. One of his main aims is to develop improved immunotherapy and gene editing tools to stop the buildup of amyloid and to disable or even repair disease-causing mutations.
“This is not science fiction anymore,” says Ingelsson, who previously worked in Uppsala, Sweden, alongside Lars Lannfelt and the team responsible for the monoclonal antibody lecanemab (Leqembi) – leading to the first immunotherapies to successfully clear some amyloid plaques from the brains of Alzheimer patients. Lecanemab was recently approved by the FDA to help slow the progression of patients at early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The team has also developed an antibody designed to clear the toxic proteins causing Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, which is now undergoing evaluation in clinical trials.
“These approaches – to prevent or clear existing protein brain pathology with immunotherapy and to target familial forms of the disease with gene therapy – are being continuously developed in experimental models of the disease. I am certain that the future will enable us to treat Alzheimer’s disease more and more effectively”.
While Gerald sadly passed away in 2023 at just 70 years of age, Kathy remained deeply inspired by Ingelsson’s vision and touched by his compassionate approach to Gerald’s treatment. She decided to take action by making a donation to establish the Gerald I S Owen Memorial Fund at the Tanz Centre. This fund will support Ingelsson’s research to develop a new generation of antibodies for immunotherapy designed to target different types of protein pathology in patients with neurodegenerative disorders, with the aim of providing more precise and effective treatment options.
For Kathy, who also supported Gerald’s father living with Alzheimer’s disease, honouring Gerald in a way that will support future patients is a fitting and touching tribute.
“Gerald was a remarkable person, both in terms of his essential goodness as well as his brilliance,” Kathy says. “I’ve now supported two people that I love through this terrible disease – it means so much to me that we are able to provide hope for others going through it.”
