The ALS Association announces new grants to support research on Lou Gehrig's Disease

The ALS AssociationAug 9 2012

The ALS Association announced today its latest research awards that include funding commitments of $4 million to researchers in 31 laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and Canada. These awards are part of its Translational Research Advancing Therapies for ALS (TREAT ALS™) program, through which The Association funds a diverse portfolio of research to find treatments and a cure for Lou Gehrig's Disease.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Eventually, people with ALS lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement, which often leads to total paralysis and death within two to five years of diagnosis. There is no cure and only one drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that modestly extends survival.

"We are very pleased to announce these new research grants to some of the most promising ALS researchers in the U.S. and around the world," said Lucie Bruijn, Ph.D., Chief Scientist for The ALS Association. "The ALS Association looks forward to sharing the results of these diverse studies, which we hope will provide pieces to the complex puzzle of this devastating disease."

The ALS Association offers both Investigator-Initiated Awards, for research proposed by the scientists themselves, and ALS Association-Initiated Awards, for research proposals in areas identified by the Association and its scientific advisors as key targets for new research.

The Association also offers The Milton Safenowitz Post-Doctoral Fellowship for ALS Research Award. Funding for this two-year research award is made possible by the generosity of the Safenowitz family through the Greater New York Chapter of The ALS Association and is in memory of Mr. Safenowitz, who died of ALS in 1998. These awards are to encourage and facilitate promising young scientists to enter the ALS field.  

All of these new grants will support research to understand the causes of ALS, to develop new treatments, and to create tools that will help improve clinical trials of new therapies.  More specifically, the research will include work in cell and animal model systems, genetics, environmental investigations, and work directly with people with ALS.