ALS Association Announces $4.3 million in ALS Research Grants

The ALS Association announced its award of $4.3 million in new research grants supporting 35 new projects for 2013. These awards are part of its Translational Research Advancing Therapy (TREAT ALS™) program, through which The Association funds a diverse portfolio of research to find treatments and a cure for ALS.

Funding is provided for 14 states in the U.S. as well as in Canada, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, France and Argentina.

“These awards will drive research on several emerging fronts in the quest to understand and find treatments for ALS,” said Lucie Bruijn, PhD, Chief Scientist for The ALS Association. “The generosity of our donors and supporters makes these grants possible. We are very grateful for that generosity and the opportunity it provides to make these awards for this important research.”

The ALS Association funds both Investigator-Initiated Awards, for research proposed by investigators and Association-Initiated Awards, for research proposals in areas identified by The Association and its scientific advisors as key targets for new research.

Funded through the generosity of Greater New York Chapter Board Member Marilyn Safenowitz, The ALS Association also offers The Milton Safenowitz Postdoctoral Fellowship for ALS Research Award, in memory of her husband Milton Safenowitz, who died of ALS in 1998. These grants are awarded to encourage and facilitate promising young scientists to enter the field of ALS research.

Financial support from a number of organizations and individuals enabled The ALS Association to fund these new research grants, including direct funding from the Greater New York Chapter to the innovative research of Tom Maniatis, PhD of Columbia University. His project focuses on understanding the mechanisms of ALS. The Greater New York Chapter presented Dr. Maniatis with the Jacob K. Javits Lifetime Achievement Award last Fall.

All of these new grants will support research to understand the causes of ALS, to develop new treatments, and to create tools to help to help deliver new therapies. For more on this and all of the projects funded, visit our website – www.als-ny.org – and click Research.