Project ALS and Columbia University are launching a new platform with a goal of discovering more useful treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients, and pushing the most promising candidates to clinical trials. Core, as it…
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurological disease that affects motor neurons or nerve cells that control muscle movement. There is currently no cure for ALS but there are experimental treatments, including gene therapy. ALS and genetics In ALS, some genes are known to be modified or mutated, which…
Aquestive’s new drug application for Exservan — an investigational oral film of riluzole to be used as an add-on therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — has been accepted by the U.S. Food…
Recently, I attended an “Ask the Experts” educational seminar sponsored by my local chapter of the ALS Association. It’s an annual event that presents current information on ALS-related topics and allows attendees to exchange ideas with fellow ALS patients. This year’s theme was “ALS clinical trials…
The most common genetic cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disrupts the shape and workings of a compartment inside a cell’s nucleus, researchers report, detailing a discovery that helps to explain how this mutation prompts cell death in ALS. Abnormalities resulting from this mutation, specifically the length of the…
As many as a third of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) also have symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, which may be due to differences in brain activity between those with and without these symptoms, a study reports. The study, “Parkinsonian traits in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis…
A possible new target for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) may be the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway, which helps cells remove potentially harmful RNA, like RNA that’s been improperly processed or comes from viruses. Researchers in this early study also suggest that an asthma treatment known as tranilast (marketed in Japan…
Rates of invasive assisted ventilation are 3.2 times higher in African Americans with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared to Caucasian patients, which may explain why African American patients live longer, according to a recent study. The study, “Racial differences in intervention rates in individuals with ALS: A case-control study,”…
Increasing blood flow in the spinal cord by injecting a long-acting vasodilator can help prevent the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in mice, a study shows. The study, “Single injection of sustained-release prostacyclin analog ONO-1301-MS ameliorates hypoxic toxicity in the…
Widely used to study several human diseases, zebrafish can now be a useful preclinical model to study amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) linked to angiogenin mutations, according to researchers at the University of Bath. The model was described in a study, “…
