July 31, 2009 Welcome back! If you haven't already signed up to get our bi-weekly e-newsletter summarizing and bringing the newest content from the ALS Forum straight to your inbox, please do (using the Join our Email List Button on the right). We are pleased to bring you several new stories including a story about reticulons (the class of proteins that includes the neurite inhibitor Nogo), which have been proposed to be relevant to ALS biology and are an active therapeutic target for a variety of indications, a conference news update that discusses new progress in biomarker development for a number of neurodegenerative diseases, and several updates from a major Alzheimer's Disease meeting of relevance to ALS including a surprising finding that a widely used dye seems to reduce TDP43 aggregation. We have also added another company to the ALS Drug Development Database and several other ALS Drug News stories. Let us know what you think!
July 15, 2009 For your viewing pleasure, even more exclusive conference news from the recent ALS-FTD conference in London, Ontario! Read Dr. Dance's July 10 piece discussing new insights into cognitive impairment in ALS. Surprisingly ApoE, more commonly associated with Alzheimers Disease, may also be a risk factor for developing cognitive impairment in ALS. The ALS Forum Portal now also features a story describing an intriguing new finding that ALS patients, similar to Parkinson's patients, may also show decreased levels of the body's natural anti-oxidant uric acid, and what the implications of this may be on disease progression. Finally check out a variety of different news stories on the industry side featured in our Drug News section.
July 9, 2009 Check out our exclusive conference news coverage from the recent ALS-FTD conference in London, Ontario. Two new reports, one covering the latest research on the FUS gene (the most recent gene whose mutations have been shown to be linked to ALS), the other a round-up of a variety of recently created TDP43 animal models, which will hopefully provide us with new insights into the still poorly understood link between TDP43 and ALS. In addition, we have updated the ALS Drug Development Database to include information on Signum Pharmaceuticals and Intellect Neuroscience.
June 25, 2009 We are pleased to feature a beautiful piece on the promise and challenges of brain computer interface technology for ALS, written by Dr. Amber Dance, a science writer with the Alzheimers Research Forum, funded by Prize4Life. Also of note is a nice summary piece about an exciting new finding in Huntingtons Disease (summar of article in June 14th volume of Nature Neuroscience) with potential relevance for ALS, as defects in axonal transport appear to be critical for both diseases. We have added new Drug News content and are in the process of adding several new companies to the Drug Development Database including: Daval International Ltd and Prana Biotechnology Ltd. Let us know what you think!
June 17, 2009 Take a look at the two new Research News stories, one on ALS clinical trial design issues and the other on disease progression and prognosis in motor neuron diseases currently thought to be distinct from ALS (although as you will read, the lines really blur). We have also added an interesting Conference News report that raises issues of the growing overlap between and among the various neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimers Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Frontotemporal Dementia, and ALS. Stay tuned for several additions to the ALS Drug Development Database.
June 9, 2009 Check out the latest news story on TDP-43 as well as updates to the Drug News page focused on several young companies working in the ALS space. We have also added some new links to the Links page, several upcoming conferences of interest to the Meeting Calendar, and stay tuned for some valuable new conference-related content coming next.
May 29, 2009 Welcome to the ALS Forum. As we are just launching, everything is new!
Just to give you the lay of the land, under the News tab you will find new ALS research updates, recent drug development news, scientific meeting summaries, and a scientific meeting calendar. Under the Resources tab you will find a list of current active industry efforts relevant to ALS as well as a list of valuable review articles covering various aspects of ALS related science. Under the Links tab you will find a variety of helpful links to other sites including funding organizations, organizations providing research resources, and networking resources. Check back here for notice of future changes as we continue to update the ALS Forum site.
