American Asthma Foundation

The American Asthma Foundation (AAF) was founded in 1999, with the mission of improving treatment for asthma and, ultimately, to cure or prevent the disease. Its approach was to support basic research into the causes of asthma, in order to define new targets for therapy. The AAF was supported primarily by one source, the Sandler Foundation, which invested over $100 million in direct support of asthma research. Other generous donors also supported the AAF throughout the years, including the William K. Foundation and John and Cynthia Gunn. Attempts to raise funds on the scale needed to sustain the program into the future, however, met with limited success. Therefore, in 2019 the American Asthma Foundation suspended its programs. From its onset, the AAF initiated a new approach to disease-related research by recruiting and supporting top investigators in other fields to focus their expertise on asthma. Risk was encouraged. Investigators were given freedom to pursue their most innovative ideas, and no preliminary results were required.