Dee Brehm is no stranger to needles. For the past 55 years, the McLean, Va., resident has injected herself with insulin more than 100,000 times and pricked her finger with a personal blood monitor more than 60,000 times in an effort to control her Type 1 diabetes.
Yesterday morning, she and her husband took a shot at ending the disease forever. Bill and Dee Brehm gave the University of Michigan Health System $44 million to accelerate the search for a cure to the disease that has plagued her since she was 19 years old.