Category: Research

A study published today in Muscle & Nerve on the long-term data from the CENTAUR clinical trial and open-label extension shows that AMX0035 has promise for extending survival in people living with ALS.

The results demonstrated that early treatment with AMX0035 resulted in longer survival for people living with ALS on the therapy during the Phase 2 clinical trial compared to those who only received it during the open-label extension. The study, sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Amylyx, followed participants for up to three years from the CENTAUR trial. This data complements the study published in September 2020 in the New England Journal of Medicine, which demonstrated AMX0035 was safe and slowed the rate of decline in people living with ALS compared to those on placebo.

ALS Canada continues to actively engage with Amylyx to advocate for the company to include Canada in their future plans.

You can read more about the results here.

A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that AMX0035, an experimental therapy, has promise for slowing the progression of ALS.

AMX0035 is an oral drug that contains two small molecules, which when combined, aim to preserve motor neuron health in people living with ALS, thereby delaying the progression of symptoms. Results from the Phase 2 CENTAUR clinical trial, sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Amylyx, showed that AMX0035 was safe and slowed the rate of decline in people living with ALS on the therapy compared to those on placebo. All clinical trial participants were measured and assessed over 24 weeks primarily based on the ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R). The preliminary data also showed potential benefits in areas including measures of muscle strength, breathing and hospitalization frequency. In addition, many participants in the trial were also already taking riluzole and Radicava (edaravone), meaning the effects observed were on top of that for the current standard of care.

ALS Canada has been in contact with Amylyx for many years and has continually advocated to have the company include Canada in their immediate future plans. We remain committed to bringing forward the needs of people living with ALS and to engage in meaningful dialogue that demonstrates the urgent need for access within the ALS community. The positive results from this study represent another step forward in developing new therapies that will one day transform the reality of living with ALS.

You can read more about the results here.

July 9, 2020 – A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that an experimental drug, called tofersen, has promise for treating a genetic form of ALS caused by mutations in the gene SOD1.

Results from the Phase 1/2 clinical trial, sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Biogen, revealed that tofersen was safe and able to lower levels of the toxic SOD1 protein thought to contribute to disease progression. The preliminary data also showed potential for slowing loss of function and preserving neuronal health. Canadian researchers have played a key role in the studies so far as Dr. Angela Genge (Montreal) and Dr. Lorne Zinman (Toronto) have been involved since the beginning. The positive results from this study led to launch of the Phase 3 VALOR study that will further test the safety and effectiveness of tofersen and is ongoing at a number of sites globally, including at four Canadian sites: Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal (Neuro).

If the Phase 3 trial is successful and tofersen moves forward as a new and proven treatment for ALS, it will directly benefit the small percentage of ALS patients who have a mutation in the SOD1 gene. However, the lessons learned from this pivotal study will help researchers when developing new approaches to treating all forms of ALS.

2018 funding competition with Brain Canada results in $720,000 for six trainee awards – more trainee awards in a single year than ever before

TORONTO December 13, 2018 – The ALS Society of Canada (ALS Canada), together with Brain Canada, today announced $720,000 in funding for six new trainee awards, thus completing the last of the $20 million research partnership with the Brain Canada Foundation (with financial support from the Government of Canada) following the Ice Bucket Challenge. ALS Canada is also pleased to partner with La Fondation Vincent Bourque who will be providing financial support for one of these awards. Each grant has been awarded with the aim of sustaining high-quality Canadian ALS research by providing salary support for the next generation of ALS researchers currently pursuing PhDs or postdoctoral research positions.

At a given time, approximately 3,000 Canadians are living with ALS, a terminal disease that gradually paralyzes people because the brain is no longer able to communicate with the muscles of the body that we are typically able to move at will. As the connection with the brain and muscles breaks down, someone living with ALS will lose the ability to walk, talk, eat, swallow, and eventually breathe. Each year approximately 1,000 Canadians die from ALS. With no cure and few treatment options available that have a significant impact on the progression of the disease, 80 per cent of people with ALS die within two to five years of diagnosis.

“This was a tremendous opportunity to collaborate with Brain Canada and La Fondation Vincent Bourque to support more trainees in a given year than ever before,” said Dr. David Taylor, VP Research, ALS Society of Canada. “For more than a decade the ALS Society of Canada has funded exceptional students and postdoctoral candidates with the goals of advancing key Canadian ALS research and creating the next generation of dedicated ALS researchers in the country. It’s a program that has impact today and for many years to come.”

“Since 2015, Brain Canada’s much-valued partnership with the ALS Canada Research Program has resulted in a $20-million investment in ALS research. The funded projects will lead to new discoveries in the development of effective treatments for this devastating disease, and enable the next generation of ALS researchers to start or continue research in promising areas of investigation,” said Inez Jabalpurwala, President and CEO, Brain Canada Foundation. “In addition, the discoveries that will result from this partnership have the potential to inform how we approach other neurodegenerative diseases with similar underlying mechanisms, such as MS, and Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases.”

“An ALS diagnosis has significant impact on all areas of life – physical, emotional and financial – but the progress of research in recent years has brought hope to those living with ALS that life-changing treatments could be possible,” shared Vincent Bourque, the founder of La Fondation Vincent Bourque, shortly before his passing in November 2018. Mr. Bourque was diagnosed with ALS in 2015 at the age of 40. “Future advancements in research are only limited by the amount of funding available, which is why we are proud to be helping to build the capacity for future ALS research discovery by supporting an early-career researcher.”

This year’s six trainee award recipients seek to answer the following questions about how ALS occurs and how it could be treated:

• Can advanced imaging techniques effectively pinpoint validated biomarkers in ALS and track disease progression?
  $75,000 has been awarded to Abdullah Ishaque, a MD/PhD student from Dr. Sanjay Kalra’s lab at the University of Alberta. Abdullah’s research involves analysing images obtained from the Canadian ALS Neuroimaging Consortium (CALSNIC), a project that was funded through the single largest grant given by ALS Canada and the Brain Canada Foundation following the Ice Bucket Challenge.
• Can restoring motor neuron inhibition prevent or stop ALS progression?
  In partnership with La Fondation Vincent Bourque, $165,000 has been awarded to Dr. Sahara Khademullah, a postdoctoral fellow from Dr. Yves De Koninck’s lab at Université Laval. This research builds on two projects previously funded by ALS Canada that explore whether targeting the activity of upper motor neurons in the brain could be a new and unexplored way to treat ALS.
• Is a loss of C9orf72, responsible for the most common protein abnormality in ALS?
  $75,000 has been awarded to Lilian Lin, a PhD student in Dr. Janice Robertson’s lab at the University of Toronto.
• Does a specific type of viral infection play a role in triggering ALS and its progression?
  $75,000 has been awarded to Yasir Mohamud, a PhD student in Dr. Honglin Luo’s lab at the University of British Columbia.
• Can using worm and stem cell models of ALS to screen for new ALS drugs identify something that slows disease progression?
  $165,000 has been awarded to Dr. Prateep Pakavathkumar, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Alex Parker’s lab at Université de Montréal.
• Can antibodies detect a key misfolded protein associated with ALS in cerebral spinal fluid?
  $165,000 has been awarded to Dr. Yulong Sun, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Avi Chakrabartty’s lab at the University of Toronto.

The granting of these trainee awards follows a competitive peer review process, which engaged a panel of Canadian ALS experts in evaluating applications to identify the most exceptional young researchers whose projects have great potential to advance the field of ALS research. All aspects of the peer review process were executed in full partnership with Brain Canada, whose funds are provided through the Canada Brain Research Fund (with financial support from Health Canada).

With Brain Canada’s commitment of matched funds now complete, the ALS Canada Research Program will now return to its historic funding levels with $1.5 million to $2 million in research grants awarded each year.

About the ALS Canada Research Program and Canada’s ALS Societies

The ALS Canada Research Program funds peer-reviewed research grants and fosters collaboration amongst Canadian researchers, helping to nurture new ideas and build capacity. ALS Societies across Canada fundraise on a regional basis to provide services and support to people and families living with ALS in their province and contribute to the funding of the ALS Canada Research Program. ALS Societies advocate federally, provincially and locally on behalf of people and families living with ALS for better government support and access within the healthcare system.

About Brain Canada and the Canada Brain Research Fund

Brain Canada is a national registered charity that enables and supports excellent, innovative, paradigm-changing brain research in Canada. Since 1998, Brain Canada has made the case for the brain as a single, complex system with commonalities across the range of neurological disorders, mental illnesses and addictions, brain and spinal cord injuries. Looking at the brain as one system has underscored the need for increased collaboration across disciplines and institutions, and a smarter way to invest in brain research that is focused on outcomes that will benefit patients and families. Brain Canada’s vision is to understand the brain, in health and illness, to improve lives and achieve societal impact.

The Canada Brain Research Fund is a public-private partnership between the Government of Canada and Brain Canada, designed to encourage Canadians to increase their support of brain research, and maximize the impact and efficiency of those investments. Brain Canada has committed $115 million from private donors and non-federal partners—now numbering more than 100—which Health Canada has matched with $120 million. For more information, visit www.braincanada.ca or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

For more information:
416-497-2267 x213
media@als.ca

The ALS Canada Research Program awards eight new project grants in the pursuit of new therapy targets.

TORONTO, November 15, 2018 – The ALS Society of Canada (ALS Canada) today announced an investment of $1 million in eight new research projects being funded in 2018 through the ALS Canada Research Program, which is the only dedicated source of funding for ALS research in Canada. The ALS Canada Research Program is generously funded by Canadians committed to a future without ALS through individual donations and community-based efforts, including 40 per cent of net proceeds from the WALK for ALS fundraising events that take place across the country.

The eight new research projects being funded include multiple studies using cutting-edge techniques, never before applied to ALS, further examination of newly discovered proteins that may be critical to understanding how ALS works in the body, the use of specialized models of ALS to better understand how the disease occurs, a new spin on targeting abnormal immune and inflammatory mechanisms to treat ALS, and development of a unique Canadian protocol to measure the value of therapies on quality of life alongside medical evaluation in clinical trials.

“As someone living with ALS, when I see the passion and dedication of the Canadian ALS research community, I am hopeful that we will soon find the answers we need to change the lives of people living with this disease,” said Denis Blais, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2015 and last year had the opportunity to observe the peer review process. “While there has been significant progress in the last few years, there is more work to be done and we must continue to invest in ALS research to bring us closer to a future without ALS.”

The ALS Canada Research Program aims to accelerate research impact by providing funding support for the best ALS projects focused on someday translating scientific discoveries into treatments for ALS. The ongoing commitment of donors and partnership with provincial ALS Societies provides the program the ability to support new and innovative basic research, as well as help established researchers maintain momentum on vital ALS research projects.

“The Project Grant program directs donor dollars towards the best ALS research projects in Canada,” said Dr. David Taylor, VP Research, ALS Society of Canada. “These include great new ideas that need pilot funding to gather a foundation of data, ongoing ALS research that is already impacting the global understanding of ALS, and studies that directly affect people living with ALS today. Canadians are important contributors to the field and we hope the program can expand to fund even more projects in the future.”

The research being funded will seek to answer questions that will enable the exploration of new therapeutic targets, extend existing research to support further discoveries and help researchers gain a greater understanding about why ALS progresses differently in each individual. The research questions to be answered are:

• Can unique fish models of ALS be used to understand nervous system signaling in ALS?
  $125,000 has been awarded to Dr. Gary Armstrong at the Montréal Neurological Institute.
• Can a protein that affects immune cells in the brain be reprogrammed to prevent or slow ALS?
  $125,000 has been awarded to Dr. Jasna Kriz at Université Laval.
• Can an effective measure of ALS-specific health related quality of life in clinical trials be developed?
  $124,993.81 has been awarded to Dr. Ayse Kuspinar and Dr. Vanina Dal Bello-Haas, both from McMaster University
• Are abnormal stress granules a unifying factor in ALS?
  $125,000 has been awarded to Dr. Eric Lécuyer at Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM).
• Is ALS pathology different in one region of the brain vs. another within a single person with ALS?
  $125,000 has been awarded to Dr. Janice Robertson at the University of Toronto.
• Can environmental factors affecting genes explain why ALS affects people differently?
  $125,000 has been awarded to Dr. Ekaterina Rogaeva at the University of Toronto.
• Does a unique, hidden protein called altFUS play a role in ALS?
  $125,000 has been awarded to Dr. Xavier Roucou at Université de Sherbrooke.
• Does a previously unstudied protein called hnRNP A1B play an important role in ALS?
  $125,000 has been awarded to Dr. Christine Vande Velde at the University of Montréal.

The project grants for Dr. Ayse Kuspinar and Dr. Vanina Dal Bello-Haas, Dr. Janice Robertson and Dr. Xavier Roucou are supported in part by the Bernice Ramsay Estate.

Approximately 3,000 Canadians are living with ALS, a terminal disease that gradually paralyzes people because the brain is no longer able to communicate with the muscles of the body that we are typically able to move at will. Each year approximately 1,000 Canadians die from ALS and a similar number are diagnosed. With no cure and few treatment options available that have a significant impact on the progression of the disease, most people with ALS die within two to five years of diagnosis.

The funding of the eight research projects followed a competitive peer review process, which engaged global ALS experts who evaluated a larger pool of applications to identify the projects that are grounded in scientific excellence and have the potential to most quickly advance the field of ALS research in order to develop effective treatments. The peer review was observed by people who have personal experience with ALS.

About the ALS Canada Research Program and Canada’s ALS Societies

The ALS Research Program funds peer-reviewed research grants and fosters collaboration amongst Canadian researchers, helping to nurture new ideas and build capacity. Collectively through initiatives like the Walk to End ALS, ALS Societies across Canada support the ALS Canada Research Program. ALS Societies across Canada work together to maximize our collective impact and make the greatest difference for people affected by ALS. Our approach as eight independent organizations working in partnership enables us to respond to the variation that exists between provincial healthcare systems where we each play a role in filling gaps by providing community-based support. ALS Societies advocate federally, provincially and locally on behalf of people and families living with ALS for better government support and access within the healthcare system.

For more information:
416-497-2267 x213
media@als.ca

Washington, D.C. (March 8, 2018) – The ALS Association, in partnership with the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MND Association) and the ALS Society of Canada, is pleased to announce $600,000 in funding to support the ALS Reproducible Antibody Platform (ALS-RAP). The funding will support the creation of an open-access pipeline to validate antibody research and provide the ALS research community with the highest quality reliable, renewable antibodies for ALS genes.

ALS-RAP was created as a public-private partnership comprised of world experts in antibody generation and validation, including Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) and its associated labs at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) McGill University in Montreal (Canada), the University of Oxford (UK), and the Karolinska Institute (Sweden).

Standard operating procedures will be established to characterize ALS antibodies – both commercially available and newly created – to ensure these exceed SGC and the Neuro’s stringent quality criteria to establish a public list of “gold-standard” antibodies that will ultimately lay a solid foundation for successful ALS therapies.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Eventually, people with ALS lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement, which leads to total paralysis and death, usually within two to five years of diagnosis. The vast majority of ALS cases are believed to be caused by a diverse combination of genetic and environmental factors. There is no cure.

Antibodies are among the most frequently used tools in basic science research and clinical assays. Researchers either purchase or generate their own antibodies to detect proteins in their model systems. In part due to lack of a common and transparent validation framework, antibodies often turn out to have high variability and low specificity. This may yield questionable results, leading to wasted time and money, and more importantly, compromising steady scientific progress to understand this challenging disease.

In response, ALS-RAP was formed to ensure the availability of the highest quality, validated antibodies developed using standard operating procedures that will be openly shared with the ALS research community. Notably, no form of intellectual property protection or patents will be filed for all new reproducible antibodies fully discovered and developed by ALS-RAP. This collaborative effort, based on open science and complete freedom to operate, will ensure the use of the highest-quality tools to increase the success of future drug discovery.

This partnership brings together antibody experts from institutions all over the world. The SGC is a global network of experienced academic and industry scientists that will contribute expertise in the development of reagents required for target validation and drug discovery.

ALS-RAP will be working with Lucie Bruijn, Ph.D. MBA, Chief Scientist, The ALS Association; Brian Dickie, Ph.D., Director of Research Development, the MND Association; and David Taylor, Ph.D., Vice President, Research, ALS Society of Canada. Janice Robertson, Ph.D., Professor at University of Toronto; Aaron Gitler, Ph.D., Professor of Genetics at Stanford University; Joe Lewcock, Ph.D., Head of Biology Discovery at Denali; and Janine Kirby, Ph.D., Reader in Neurogenetics at The University of Sheffield will serve as advisors and provide input and guidance into the panel of proposed antibodies to be generated.

An ALS Gene Prioritization Panel with additional experts will also be created to ensure that nomination of genes into ALS-RAP will be transparently responsive to requests for antibody creation and validation from the global ALS research community. Taken together with Open Science model and patent-free access to all outputs, it is expected that the ALS-RAP will galvanize and enable a faster and even more efficient development of therapies to address the ALS challenge, globally.

“The ALS Association is delighted to fund this exciting initiative and believe that it will be an extremely valuable open resource for researchers globally,” stated Lucie Bruijn, Ph.D.

“We are delighted to partner on this exciting new initiative to provide researchers with the ‘best tools for the job’, which will help improve the quality and pace of ALS research,“ said Brian Dickie, Ph.D, Director of Research, MND Association.

“This platform has the potential to accelerate our ability to understand and treat ALS by removing a long-standing hurdle to discovery, and ALS Canada is thrilled to be supporting it as part of this international partnership,” stated David Taylor, Ph.D., Vice President, Research, ALS Society of Canada.

“We are excited to be part of such a visionary initiative from the three leading ALS foundations to build a truly groundbreaking model to underpin the future of therapeutics discovery,” said Wen Hwa Lee, Ph.D., Director of Disease Foundations at the Structural Genomics Consortium and based at the University of Oxford.

About The ALS Association

The ALS Association is the only national nonprofit organization fighting Lou Gehrig’s Disease on every front. By leading the way in global research, providing assistance for people with ALS through a nationwide network of chapters, coordinating multidisciplinary care through certified clinical care centers, and fostering government partnerships, the Association builds hope and enhances quality of life while aggressively searching for new treatments and a cure. For more information about The ALS Association, visit our website at www.alsa.org.

About the Motor Neurone Disease Association

The MND Association was founded in 1979 by a group of volunteers with experience of living with or caring for someone with MND. They are the only national charity in England, Wales and Northern Ireland focused on MND care, research and campaigning. The MND Association improves care and support for people with MND, their families and carers, funds and promotes research that leads to new understanding and treatments, and brings us closer to a cure for MND, and campaigns and raises awareness so the needs of people with MND and everyone who cares for them are recognized and addressed by wider society.

About the ALS Society of Canada

Founded in 1977, the ALS Society of Canada (ALS Canada) and our provincial partners are dedicated to supporting Canadians living with ALS and investing in research to make ALS a treatable, not terminal, disease. We are a registered charity that receives no government funding – all of our services and research are funded through the generosity of our donors. Through the ALS Canada Research Program, we fund peer-reviewed research grants, foster collaboration and build capacity within Canada’s ALS research community, and participate in new areas of research where we are well-positioned to have an impact. Within Ontario, ALS Canada has a role similar to that of the provincial ALS societies providing services and support to help meet the needs of people living with ALS. ALS Canada advocates federally, provincially, and locally for better government support and access within the healthcare system for people touched by ALS. www.als.ca

About the Structural Genomics Consortium

The SGC is a pre-competitive public-private partnership that accelerates research in human biology and drug discovery by making all of its research output freely available to the scientific community. To achieve its mission, the organization is building an open and collaborative network of scientists. The SGC has active research facilities at seven leading academic institutions across the globe (Toronto and Montreal-Canada, Oxford-UK, UNICAMP-Brazil, Karolinska-Sweden, UNC Chapel Hill-USA and Frankfurt-Germany), and SGC scientists collaborate with more than 300 researchers in academia and industry. The SGC is a registered charity (number 1097737) that receives funds from AbbVie, Bayer Pharma AG, Boehringer Ingelheim, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Eshelman Institute for Innovation, Genome Canada, Innovative Medicines Initiative (EU/EFPIA), Janssen, MSD, Merck KGaA, Novartis Pharma AG, Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, Pfizer, São Paulo Research Foundation-FAPESP, Takeda, and Wellcome Trust. For more information, visit www.thesgc.org.

Contact:
Brian Frederick
The ALS Association
bfrederick@alsa-national.org

TORONTO, November 22, 2017 – Today, the ALS Society of Canada announced 12 exciting new research projects being funded in 2017 through the ALS Canada Research Program, which is supported by ALS Societies across Canada. The research being funded includes a multi-year study of a promising drug combination, three trainee grants that will help to nurture the next generation of Canadian ALS researchers currently pursuing their PhDs, two projects that explore how ALS treatments could be delivered through the bloodstream, and an initiative that seeks to understand why the muscles of the eyes are often more resistant to ALS as other muscle groups shut down. The announcement was made in partnership with the Brain Canada Foundation, which through the Canada Brain Research Fund (with financial support from Health Canada) is co-funding the largest grant of $1.8 million through matching funds committed following the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Approximately 3,000 Canadians are living with ALS, a disease that paralyzes the body, taking away the ability to move, talk, swallow and eventually breathe. Each year about 1,000 Canadians are diagnosed with the disease and a similar number die. Most people die within two to five years of their ALS diagnosis because the disease has no cure and few treatment options.

“ALS is an incredibly complex disease, but the research community is making tremendous headway and has come very far with very little in comparison to annual funding levels of diseases that have treatment options,” says Dr. David Taylor, Vice President of Research, ALS Canada. “For the ALS Canada Research Program this has only been possible because of the generosity of donors, partnerships with provincial ALS Societies across Canada, and organizations like Brain Canada, which by matching donations made through the Ice Bucket Challenge has essentially doubled Canada’s ALS research investment over the past several years.”

Combined with research grants jointly awarded by ALS Canada and Brain Canada in 2015 and 2016, the grants awarded in 2017 are putting to work the $20 million earmarked for Canadian ALS research following the Ice Bucket Challenge that in 2014 raised unprecedented awareness for the disease and funds for ALS charities including ALS Societies across Canada. With Brain Canada’s commitment of matched funds now complete, the ALS Canada Research Program will soon return to its historic funding levels with $1.5 million to $2 million in research grants awarded each year.

“Canadians responded generously to the Ice Bucket Challenge, and by matching the $10 million earmarked for research through our partnership with Health Canada, Brain Canada doubled the impact of this generosity,” said Inez Jabalpurwala, President and CEO, Brain Canada Foundation. “Since 2015, in partnership with the ALS Canada Research Program, we have funded 20 grants for novel, outside-the-box research; nine grants for collaborative, translational research projects that will move discovery from the lab to the clinic; and five grants that enable the next generation of researcher professors to start or continue research in promising areas of investigation. While the focus of all these research investments remains ALS, Brain Canada has brought its one system approach, whereby researchers from other areas were encouraged to apply their knowledge, and every discovery carries the potential to impact other neurodegenerative disorders which share common underlying mechanisms with ALS.”

Of the research grants announced today, the $1.8-million project co-funded by ALS Canada and Brain Canada will seek to find out whether a promising drug combination can address misfolded proteins, one of the defining biological characteristics of ALS. It was awarded to a research team led by Dr. Heather Durham from McGill University, with collaborators Dr. Josephine Nalbantoglu (McGill University); Dr. Richard Robitaille (Université de Montréal), and Dr. Chantelle Sephton (Université Laval).

The other 11 projects were funded through the ALS Canada Research Program through two different grant competitions as a direct result of donations and partnerships with ALS Societies across Canada including 40% of net proceeds from the WALK for ALS fundraising events that take places across the country.

The research being funded in 2017 seeks to answer the following questions that will help to move us from greater understanding of ALS to the development of therapies for human use:

• Can adjusting the levels of a “guardian” protein protect a protein that becomes toxic in most cases of ALS?  $125,000 awarded to Dr. Marco Prado with collaborators Dr. Martin Duennwald and Dr. Flavio Beraldo, all from Western University
• Can image-guided focused ultrasound technology be used safely in people living with ALS as a means of delivering future treatment? $124,948 awarded to Dr. Lorne Zinman with collaborators Dr. Nir Lipsman, Dr. Kullervo Hynynen, Dr. Sandra Black, Dr. Todd Mainprize, and Dr. Agessandro Abrahao, all from the University of Toronto
• Can microscopic bubbles in our bodies be used to deliver ALS treatments through the bloodstream? $125,000 awarded to Dr. Derrick Gibbings with collaborators Dr. Baptiste Lacoste and Dr. Maxim Berezovski, all from the University of Ottawa
• Could targeting the activity of motor neurons in the spinal cord be a new way to diagnose and treat ALS? $125,000 awarded to Dr. Yves De Koninck, Université Laval
• Could the change in communication processes between motor neurons and the immune cells of the nervous system after an ALS diagnosis help to identify new treatment targets? $124,930 awarded to Dr. Stefano Stifani, McGill University
• Could touchscreen technology help to improve testing for the cognitive impairment that occurs in some cases of ALS? $110,770 awarded to Dr. Flavio Beraldo with collaborators Dr. Marco Prado and Dr. Vania Prado, all from Western University
• Could whole genome sequencing reveal new areas of genetic mutations that make some people more likely to develop ALS? $75,000 awarded to Jay Ross, a PhD student in Dr. Guy Rouleau’s lab at McGill University
• How might misfolded proteins that occur in ALS cause cells to die? $50,000 awarded to Sonja Di Gregorio, a PhD student in Dr. Martin Duennwald’s lab at Western University
• What can we learn from mice that are able to walk almost normally despite significant loss of motor neuron function? $125,000 awarded to Dr. Turgay Akay, Dalhousie University
• Why are eye muscles more resistant to ALS, and what can we learn about this that could help to preserve the function and use of other muscles?  $121, 048 awarded to Dr. Richard Robitaille with collaborator Danielle Arbour, both from Université de Montréal
• Will probiotics that improve ALS symptoms in worms also work in mice? $75,000 awarded to Audrey Labarre, a PhD student in Alex Parker’s lab at the Université de Montréal

The funding of these 12 research projects follows a rigorous scientific assessment by global ALS experts who evaluated a larger pool of applications to identify the projects that are grounded in scientific excellence and have the potential to most quickly advance the field of ALS research in order to develop effective treatments. The scientific evaluation was observed by people who have personal experience with ALS.

About Canada’s ALS Societies and the ALS Canada Research Program
ALS Societies across Canada fundraise on a regional basis to provide services and support to people and families living with ALS in their province and contribute to the funding of the ALS Canada Research Program. The ALS Canada Research Program funds peer-reviewed research grants and fosters collaboration amongst Canadian researchers, helping to nurture new ideas and build capacity. ALS Societies advocate federally, provincially and locally on behalf of people and families living with ALS for better government support and access within the healthcare system.

About Brain Canada and the Canada Brain Research Fund
Brain Canada is a national registered charity headquartered in Montreal that enables and supports excellent, innovative, paradigm-changing brain research in Canada. For nearly two decades, Brain Canada has made the case for the brain as a single, complex system with commonalities across the range of neurological disorders, mental illnesses and addictions, brain and spinal cord injuries. Looking at the brain as one system has underscored the need for increased collaboration across disciplines and institutions, and a smarter way to invest in brain research that is focused on outcomes that will benefit patients and families. Brain Canada’s vision is to understand the brain, in health and illness, to improve lives and achieve societal impact.

The Canada Brain Research Fund is a public-private partnership between the Government of Canada and Brain Canada, designed to encourage Canadians to increase their support of brain research, and maximize the impact and efficiency of those investments. Brain Canada and its partners have committed to raising $120 million, which is being matched by Health Canada on a 1:1 basis for a total of $240 million. For more information, visit www.braincanada.ca.

For more information:
416-497-2267 x234
media@als.ca