Sindgi Dattu Sastry, Ph.D. and Pushpa Sastry have been instrumental in advancing research into the causes and treatment of various neurodegenerative disorders, with a particular emphasis on Parkinson's Disease. They have donated over $2 million to the Department of Neurology at Wayne State University School of Medicine, establishing the Sastry Foundation Endowed Research Fund, the Sastry Foundation Imaging Laboratory, and the Sastry Foundation Endowed Chair.

The Sastry Foundation Endowed Research Fund was established in 2012, and the Sastrys provided additional funding to purchase an Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) instrument for the Sastry Foundation Advanced Laboratory. This laboratory specializes in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) analysis to study tissue injury and repair mechanisms in the central nervous system. In 2018, the Sastrys established a named Endowed Chair in Neurology to recruit a clinicician-scientist with expertise in Parkinson's Disease to accelerate progress toward effective treatments. Dr. Peter LeWitt, a member of the Wayne State University School of Medicine faculty since 1987, was chosen for this position.  In addition to their contributions to the Department of Neurology, the Sastry Foundation has also established named endowed scholarships in the School of Medicine and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

About the Sastry Foundation

The Sastry family, who founded Jogue Inc., one of the nation's largest developers and producers of flavors and fragrances for food and other products, reside in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Dr. Sastry, a trained chemist, serves as the vice president of the company he and his wife founded in 1984. Jogue Inc. has three facilities in Michigan: Plymouth, Northville and Detroit, and additional locations in California and Florida. The Sastrys have two sons: Ashok Sastry, M.D., a graduate of Wayne State University School of Medicine, and Anil Sastry, a graduate of Wayne State University Law School, who serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Jogue Inc.Dr. Sastry, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease over two decades ago, expressed his family's goal to give back to the community through the Sastry Foundation's gift to fund research in neurology. He believes that neurology has been a "black box" and hopes that the fund will promote more research at Wayne State University to develop new medicines and therapies. Mrs. Sastry also hopes that their donation will encourage others to contribute to research and help the common good.