Canadian superstar Céline Dion’s foundation is donating $2 million to the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus to advance research into stiff person syndrome and other rare neurological autoimmune diseases, university officials announced Tuesday.
Dion announced her diagnosis of stiff person syndrome, a rare disease that causes muscle stiffness, spasms and difficulty walking, in December 2022 after she had to cancel her Courage world tour.
CU Anschutz Associate Professor Amanda Piquet and her team have since worked with Dion to overcome the disease, campus officials said Tuesday. Stiff person syndrome has no cure and can be fatal if left untreated.
Dion’s struggle with stiff person syndrome is chronicled in her new documentary, “I am: Celine Dion,” which premiered in New York City this week, is now in theaters and premieres on Prime Video on Tuesday.
Piquet became the inaugural Céline Dion Foundation Endowed Chair in Autoimmune Neurology through the donation, which will support more large-scale studies and expand the university’s autoimmune neurological disease registry to guide care for patients.
The donation will also fund work to identify symptoms faster, which will lead to earlier diagnosis and a better quality of life for patients, according to the university.
In a statement, Piquet said there needs to be better therapies to treat patients with stiff person syndrome.
“Ultimately, what we’d love is a cure,” she said. “And once we cure SPS, I think we’re going to be on the road to curing more autoimmune neurologic diseases, because fundamentally it is understanding the immune system’s impact on the nervous system. But, in the meantime, we need better therapies.”
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