Participating in ALS research is a powerful way to help advance new treatments, improve care, and bring us closer to a cure. If you’ve ever thought about participating in research or are just hearing about it for the first time, we hope you will join us for Clinical Research Week, a weeklong series of free webinars happening daily from January 27 to January 31.

Evidence is emerging that not only is functional improvement possible, it’s happening for some people with SOD1-ALS who have been treated with Qalsody® (tofersen).

The ALS Association has awarded five new grants through our Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Drug Development Program. These grants—totaling $2.2 million dollars over the next two years—will support the continued preclinical development of five emerging ALS therapies in preparation for clinical testing.

Researchers at Tiziana Life Sciences, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Mass General Hospital are developing a nasal spray that helps reduce inflammation in the brain and spinal cord. This experimental therapy, called foralumab, has been shown to decrease neuroinflammation in a small group of people with multiple sclerosis and help stabilize their disease.

No matter where his lab equipment has been located, Dr. Akerman has been focused on untangling the underlying causes of neurodegenerative diseases like ALS.

For more than 50 years, Dr. Stanley Appel has devoted his life to finding solutions for people living with ALS. Learn more about his incredible work and his reasons for hope in ALS research and care.

Dr. Merit Cudkowicz, director of the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS and chief of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, will never forget the very first person with ALS that she cared for.

Type 2 diabetes, with its links to heart disease, vision loss, kidney disease, and other complications, is considered a major public health problem. However, it may also hold solutions, offering clues to ways ALS might be prevented.

Five talented young scientists dedicated to advancing our understanding of ALS and the search for new treatments have been selected as our 2024 Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Fellows. Learn more about them and their promising research.

When it comes to finding new treatments and cures for ALS, it’s not just a professional goal for Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Zhang—it’s also a deeply personal one. Learn more about how he is dedicating his career to learning more about what causes ALS so he can help develop better treatments for the disease.

Not that long ago, it would have been extremely difficult for Casey to tell his story while he was living with ALS. But thanks to research funded in part by the ALS Association, he as been able to find and use his voice again.

In honor of the 20th year of our Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, we are catching up with some of our funded fellows, like Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, to find out how the award impacted her research and career.

ALS reversals, where someone with a confirmed ALS diagnosis recovers significant lost motor function, are rare. Could genetics play a role? Learn more about a new discovery and what it could mean for the ALS community.

We are shining a spotlight on one of our current Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Program Fellows, Alexander Lin-Moore, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University.

Currently, ALS is considered a “diagnosis of exclusion,” meaning people experiencing ALS-like symptoms often have to undergo a battery of different tests designed to rule out other conditions. This means it takes, on average, 10-15 months from the time a person first notices symptoms to receiving an ALS diagnosis.

Reducing this time to diagnosis is critical to avoid unnecessary testing and medical procedures and for people living with ALS to get access to multidisciplinary care and treatments that can help maintain their quality of life.

In honor of the 20th year of our Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, we are catching up with some of our funded fellows, like Kasper Roet, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of QurAlis, to find out how the award impacted his research and career.

Since the Ice Bucket Challenge, advancements in assistive technology have significantly improved the quality of life for people living with ALS, helping them to communicate more effectively, maintain independence, and remain engaged in daily activities despite the challenges posed by the disease.

Since the Ice Bucket Challenge, more than 12 new genes have been discovered, bringing the total number of genes known to have a connection to ALS to more than 40, and the first treatment for a genetic form of the disease was approved. We know that better understanding the genetics of ALS will help make it easier to identify those at risk and ultimately prevent new cases of ALS altogether.

One of the leading researchers working to better understand what is going on at the earliest stages of the disease is Michael Benatar, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of neurology at the University of Miami. Through his research, he is identifying biomarkers that could be used to predict who is likely to develop ALS and when, as well as helping develop treatments that could potentially delay or prevent the onset of symptoms. And we are thrilled to announce he will be joining us at ALS Nexus in July to talk about this very important work.

Prior to the Ice Bucket Challenge, there was only one available treatment option for people living with ALS, as well as a few other therapies to help manage symptoms. In the last 10 years, we have seen an influx of researchers and companies striving to discover new treatments and cures for ALS. The result of these efforts has been six FDA approvals for new drugs and new drug formulations. Let's see new treatments until we can find a cure.