Our Story

The Telomere Project (TTP) was founded in 2019 by three brothers (Erik, Matt, and Michael) to address telomere syndromes and in particular idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) – an irreversible, fatal telomere syndrome. In 2014, the brothers lost their father to IPF, which had already claimed the lives of their uncle and grandfather.

It was at that time that they determined it was familial IPF resulting from a telomere syndrome, and they were identified as carrying the same telomerase mutation. Determined to change the outlook for families like theirs, they started TTP to fund research toward treatments and cures for telomere-related pulmonary fibrosis. Today TTP supports research at Columbia University, Boston Children's Hospital / Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins.