hi all, I have no experience AT ALL in advocacy or fundraising and am only posting this because of how strongly I feel we should try to help Dr Lipkin, after hearing his imploring three times in this short call for patients to pressure our govt for funding. Prof Lipkin stated clearly that he is keen to focus on the area of microbiome and study fecal samples but that it is laborious and expensive, and that he only has 10% of the money needed. I would be so grateful if anyone who knows a thing or two about fundraising and is interested in this could help me find out (a), how we can find out how much Prof Lipkin needs--is it simply a matter of emailing and asking him?, and (b), how one goes about setting up such a fund at all--what kinds of numbers can we expect? As I said I have absolutely no experience of this. I thought a PR poll would be a good starting point. vli