Killion family gives UAB $10M for neurodegenerative disease research
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The gift focuses on neurodegenerative disease research, which hits close to home for the local family.
A prominent Birmingham family has donated millions to the University of Alabama at Birmingham to support ongoing research and education into several diseases.
The Killion family gifted $10 million to UAB to expand research into Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Huntington's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The funding also will enable the creation of the Wayne Killion Endowment at the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics at the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine.
UAB will rename the center the Killion Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics. It was founded in 2007 to develop ideas from UAB laboratories into novel human therapies for patients with neurodegenerative diseases.
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The gift was presented to honor three generations of Killions who suffered from various neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. David Standaert, the John N. Whitaker Professor and chair of the UAB Department of Neurology, founding director of the center and expert in Parkinson's disease, said the gift will have a permanent impact on research into these types of diseases.
'It's going to fuel both research and education by training future generations of scientists, which is very important,' Standaert said. 'In some ways, training lasts longer than any single research project. One research project hopefully moves us toward progress. But training a scientist will have a 40- or 50-year impact.'
Today, the Killion Center is led by Dr. Erik Roberson, who holds the Rebecca Gale–Heersink Endowed Chair and specializes in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia, while Standaert continues to play an active role.
Currently, the center employs 19 principal investigators who are training around 30 doctoral students. According to Roberson, the number of scientists has steadily grown, and this gift will help continue that progress and keep the center on the cutting edge of the field.
Sandy Killion attributes the ability to give this gift to UAB to her in-laws, Christine and Wayne Killion Sr.
Her father-in-law was president and an owner of industrial insulation company Shook & Fletcher for many years. The company has expanded to become Shook & Fletcher Services, which has numerous industrial contractor affiliates, including Vulcan Industrial Contractors, Vesta Industrial Contractors and Shook & Fletcher Supply. Today, the companies are led by Sandy and her sons David and Cooper Killion.
Her father-in-law suffered from Alzheimer's and died in 2013.
Her husband, Dr. Wayne Killion Jr., was a local physician and later took over the family business from his father as president and CEO. He was diagnosed in 2019 with corticobasal degeneration and passed away in 2022.
Before Wayne Jr.'s death, their son Wayne Killion III was diagnosed with ALS and passed away in 2024, cutting short a legal career.
During both of their lifetimes, the family established separate endowed funds at UAB to support memory disorders and behavioral neurology under Dr. David Geldmacher and ALS research under Dr. Peter King. The $10 million gift includes these funds.
'While my husband was in clinical care, he understood that the research piece was so important,' Sandy Killion said. 'With what we are facing with these diseases, our family wants to do everything possible to support the immense need for research.'
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