CMV Foundation What We Do

Public Awareness and Vaccine Research Support. Working Together to Eradicate Congenital CMV Disease.
Member of the External Partner Group, in conjunction with the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental
Disabilities (NCBDDD) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Brendan B. McGinnis Congenital CMV Foundation |

The Brendan B. McGinnis Congenital CMV Foundation is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) dedicated to
raising public awareness about congenital CMV, to raise donations to support research for a vaccine
for CMV, and to affect change in the medical community so that physicians will begin to test women
for CMV prior to pregnancy. Ultimately, our mission is to save babies yet to be born from suffering
the often devastating consequences of congenital CMV by eradicating this common but potentially
life-altering virus.

Our foundation is dedicated to raising awareness of CMV, to supporting CMV vaccine research,

and

to su

pporting families affected by CMV around the world. We have a number of exciting and

important

events that enable us to put our mission statement into action.

2011 marked the first year of what will now be an annual presentation of the Award for Innovation

CMV Vaccine Research. We understand that there is only one way CMV will truly be eradicated

and that is

with a vaccine. As such, it is part of our mission statement to financially support CMV

Vaccine Reserach.

Our first Award for Innovation in CMV Vaccine Research

was presented in May 2011 at the 13th

CMV/Beta-Herpesvirus Workshop in Nuremberg, Germany. The award went to Kerstin Geregly,

doctoral student at the Institute for Virology in Mainz, Germany. Ms. Gergely used a mouse

model of

CMV infection to evaluate a vaccine strategy based on dense bodies (non-infectious

virus-like

particles that arise during virus propagation in cell culture). In addition to the award,

which covers Ms.

Gergely’s Workshop registration and travel expenses, Ms. Gergely was

presented with a plaque

commemorating the award. In sponsoring this award, the BBM cCMV

Foundation seeks to encourage

trainees in CMV research to focus on vaccine research and

development.

We look forward to presenting our second annual Award for Innovation in CMV Vaccine

Research in

2012 at the Congenital CMV Workshop in San Francisco.

Since 2008, our Foundation has been holding CMV Awareness Walk-n-Rollathons across the

country.

Raising much needed awareness as well as vital donations to support our goals, these

important

events are hosted by CMV-affected families each Spring, primarily in May and June.

In 2011, we had

major news coverage at the Washington State event, which in turn allowed us

to reach hundreds of

thousands of viewers, educating them about CMV!

For many years, families affected by CMV have not had an outlet designed specifically for them. As

such,

we have organized this fun and informative gathering for families with children affected by

CMV. Held

each June, this year we held the second annual Making Tracks Together at the Great

Wolf Lodge. The 4

day event includes expert guest speakers as well as parent speakers. There is

plenty of

formal and informal question & answer time throughout the entire event. As well, one

entire day,

"Fun-day Friday", is spent as a group in the water park with all of our families together!

This is a fantastic opportunity for families affected by congenital CMV to build community,

to share stories, advice, ideas, and undoubtedly some tears of both joy and sorrow. Our

Foundation is

honored to bring this special event each year to CMV-affected families across the

world, providing the

much needed support and unity within our special community of families.

To date, we have distributed nearly 20,000 of our tri-fold CMV informational pamphlets worldwide

to the

general public as well as to hospitals, physicians offices, daycares, fitness centers, hair salons,

schools, and

other such centers of business. We offer these as a free public service as part of our

CMV Awareness

mission.

We have recently produced a

PSA

which will begin airing on all major networks and many cable

networks late December 2011 in 6 major metropolitan areas, including the Washington DC area.

This Phase 1 launch of our PSA will reach over 44 MILLION viewers!

The PSA's are in 60, 30 and 15

second lengths and will be the

awareness tool that enables us to reach the most amount of people

right in their own home with one

broad outreach action. These PSA's can also be found on

You

Tube

, where we also have other CMV

Awareness videos available. Our videos have been viewed

by over 17,000 people so far.

Facebook

is an important medium for our Foundation regarding CMV awareness and to provide

supportive outreach with CMV-affected families around the world. As well, since 2009 our CMV

awareness

ad on facebook has had nearly 3 million impressions to date!

We continue to facilitate CMV awareness at a grassroots level with articles being published around

the

country in local papers and news stories airing on local television and radio stations. Our CMV

awareness

items encourage the public to ask whomever is wearing our CMV awareness items "just

what is CMV?"

What We Do

Award for Innovation in CMV Vaccine Research

CMV Awareness Walk-n-Rollathons

Making Tracks Together

Media, Publications & Social Networking