Our Bittersweet Family Life

We had an unseasonably warm fall day while Todd’s sister was visiting from out of state last week. I asked Todd if he’d want to head down to McLain State Park just 15 minutes from our home. “I suppose,” he said somewhat reluctantly. He wanted to be social even…

With a €1 million (about $1.1 million) prize being offered, researchers are invited to join a challenge that seeks to give people with motor neuron diseases (MND) – including those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – improved independence and a more normal lifestyle. The Cullen Education and…

“What do we do now?” That line from the 1972 movie “The Candidate” came to mind recently. The movie stars Robert Redford as a political neophyte. Redford’s character, Bill McKay, is offered as a sacrificial lamb…

Most people with bulbar onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) showed distinct signs of motor neuron injury starting in the bulbar region of the brain that controls swallowing and speaking, before symptoms descended to regions that control the upper limbs and then the lower…

A Phase 2 and potentially pivotal study investigating pegcetacoplan (APL-2) as a potential treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is now enrolling patients, Apellis Pharmaceuticals, the therapy’s developer, announced in a press release. The MERIDIAN trial (NCT04579666) is enrolling up to 228 adults with sporadic ALS and…

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics is sharing the details of the design of its Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating NurOwn as a treatment for people with rapidly progressing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), showing that the trial is…

Libra Therapeutics has officially announced its launch with a platform dedicated to developing new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The company also has secured $29 million in Series A funding. The funds will be used to expand Libra’s team…

We had snow in the air last week, reminding me that Christmas is coming, and with it, one of my favorite creative projects: wreath-making. I’ll start clipping the Fraser fir boughs and assembling the wreaths in November, but in the meantime, I’ve been gathering pine cones. I’ve been wiring…

Scribe Therapeutics and Biogen, a biotechnology company focused on neurological diseases, have established a research partnership to develop new gene therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9. The collaboration will focus initially on the development and commercialization of CRISPR-based therapies that address some…

No one applauds when the train is on time. That was the metaphor I invoked during the portion of my career spent in system implementation and post go-live support organizations within the pharmacy automation industry. I suggested that ensuring uptime was…