Funding for ALS/FTD research from the NIH

Alongside Dr Jenna Gregory, we're part of an international consortium linked with Columbia University and New York University that has been awarded $8.4 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is part of the prestigious high risk, high reward transformative research programme to explore the molecular underpinnings of functional impairments in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal spectrum disorder (ALS-FTSD).

ALS-FTSD is a devastating neurodegenerative disease spectrum for which there are no biomarkers and only limited treatments, stemming from a poor understanding of its pathogenesis. This funding, over the next 5 years, will allow the integration of novel biophysical tools with spatially resolved transcriptomic and proteomic analyses across different scales (from the cellular to the organismal), with the goal of unveiling how disease-associated pathology is linked to dysfunction in specific cell types in ALS-FTSD, which may in turn foster precision medicine-based treatment strategies.

The director of the NIH,  Francis Collins said "The science put forward by this cohort is exceptionally novel and creative and is sure to push at the boundaries of what is known. These visionary investigators come from a wide breadth of career stages and show that ground-breaking science can happen at any career level given the right opportunity."