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.

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.

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.

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.

We urgently need more and better ALS treatments. Because of this, getting promising therapies out of the laboratory and into clinical testing as quickly as possible is key to making ALS a livable disease.

Our grandfather, Herbert Hoffman, died from ALS in February 1943. This was less than two years after Lou Gehrig passed away and his name became forever attached to this disease. We never knew our grandfather. But we knew and loved and treasured our time with our uncle, Hugh Hoffman. Our uncle’s incredible donation will be spent to expand access to existing multidisciplinary ALS clinics and to certify new ones. In addition, the donation will fund new and promising clinical trials.

February 11th marks the ninth annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science, which serves as an opportunity to recognize the achievements of women working in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. To celebrate, we are shining a spotlight on Annie Collins, one of our 2023 Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Fellows, and how she is helping move the development of new ALS treatments forward.

The type of care that people with ALS receive affects survival and quality of life. That is why the ALS Association is committing nearly $2 million over the next two years to support research focused on optimizing the effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility of ALS care. These funds, granted through the new Quality of Care Research Awards, will be distributed across five projects that focus on the health and care for people living with the disease.

There is an urgent need for new and improved therapies for ALS, as there is still no cure. To help accelerate drug development and get promising treatments one step closer to regulatory evaluation, the ALS Association has committed nearly $4 million to support four early-stage clinical trials through our Hoffman ALS Clinical Trial Awards.