Thanks to our Seed Grant Program, 16 ALS researchers now have up to $50,000 each to gather the preliminary data they need to propel their research in promising new directions, which can ultimately lead to new treatment options, approaches that optimize current care, or ways to help prevent ALS altogether.
The physical impact of living with ALS presents many challenges, especially as the disease progresses. With the help of assistive technologies, people living with ALS can maintain their independence and pursue their passions for as long as possible.
Dr. Agessandro Abrahao, a professor of neurology at the University of Toronto and a neurologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, spoke about a new partnership between The ALS Association and the Focus Ultrasound Foundation and his work as a focused ultrasound investigator at the Harquail Centre for Neuromodulation.
The ALS Association has launched My ALS Journey™, a new interactive, web-based tool that allows people living with ALS to take control of their journey with the disease. Developed in consultation with the ALS community, My ALS Journey is designed to put individuals living with ALS in the driver’s seat of their own health care journey.
This last year has seen incredible progress in the fight to create a world without ALS. The FDA approval of Relyvrio (AMX0035) in 2022 and Qalsody (tofersen) last month are significant steps in the effort to make ALS a livable disease. As we celebrate the success of these long-term investments, we continue to fund the next generation of possible treatments, as well as the researchers that are searching for them.
For people living with ALS, the enjoyment and escape video games may have once brought is far too often another thing the disease takes from them. As muscles weaken and fine motor functions decrease, handling video game controllers and keeping up with fast-paced game play can cause frustration and cause people to give up on gaming all together.
ALS doesn’t care where a person lives, and a person with ALS in Florence, Italy is as much in need of reliable care and resources as someone in Florence, South Carolina. At the International Alliance of ALS/MND Association meeting in late 2022, proud “Mapper” members Amanda Stanko, senior solution engineer at Esri, and Pat (who joined remotely) shared how they are taking their clinic mapping tool internationally to provide the resource for people with ALS around the world.
We spoke with Pam Knott, vice president of data and technology at The ALS Association, to learn more about how the Association is harnessing the power and potential of big data to speed up the process of empowering people to live longer lives, to access care, to bring new treatments to market, and to reduce the harmful impact associated with the disease.
Pat was a former solutions team lead at Esri, a geographic information system (GIS) company, and spent his 25-year career in GIS creatively using mapping technology to solve real-world problems in the utility industry. Forced to retire in 2018 due to the progression of his disease, he had no idea where his passion for mapping and data would take him. “After my diagnosis, I wanted to bring GIS to the ALS battle, but wasn’t sure where to start,” says Pat.
The Pooled Resource Open-Access ALS Clinical Trials (PRO-ACT) database recently received the Healey Center International Prize for Innovation in ALS, a $50,000 prize. The database is the largest collection of ALS clinical trial data and includes de-identified records of 11,000 patients from 23 clinical trials.
Clinical trial participants who took AMX0035, a promising new drug therapy developed by Amylyx, showed a statistically significant 6.5 month increase in survivability compared to patients who did not receive the drug in the initial trial, according to data published in the journal Muscle and Nerve in October 2020. These findings validate calls led by The ALS Association and I AM ALS for Amylyx and the FDA to make AMX0035 available as quickly as possible.
