Overview:

ALS is a serious neurodegenerative disease with need for more therapeutic options. AI and Natural Language Processing offer the potential to revolutionize ALS research by enabling the extraction of meaningful insights from complex datasets, including electronic health records (EHRs), published medical literature, clinical trial data, omics datasets, and real-world patient-reported data.

ALS Finding a Cure recently issued a grant call for proposals with the following goals:

• Drug Discovery and Repurposing using machine learning to identify novel therapeutic targets.
• Biomarker Discovery and Validation through multi-omics and patient-reported data.
• AI-Driven Early Diagnosis leveraging EHRs, speech analysis, and imaging data.
• Pathomechanistic Knowledge Graphs built from medical literature using NLP tools.
• Disease Progression Modeling with longitudinal clinical and biomarker data.
• Optimizing Clinical Trials through AI-powered patient stratification and endpoint extraction.

Proposals were received from 12 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Scotland, South Korea, Sweden, US). Proposals were reviewed by an international review committee comprised of members from academia, industry, and people living with ALS.

“We are proud to announce the partnership with ALS Network and Hop On A Cure, whose shared commitment enabled us to support an exceptional group of applicants dedicated to advancing ALS research and innovation.”

Peter Foss, President of ALS Finding a Cure

“We are grateful to the ALS Finding a Cure Executive Committee Members and the many grant reviewers for selecting four outstanding AI‑ and NLP‑driven projects to accelerate ALS research. As this initiative launches, we look forward to the scientific insights, new collaborations and therapeutic discoveries these efforts will drive forward.”

Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MSC, Chief Medical Officer of ALS Finding a Cure

“ALS Network is proud to join ALS Finding A Cure and Hop On A Cure in co-funding these extraordinary AI-driven research projects. This work is more than innovation – it’s progress we can measure. By harnessing artificial intelligence to uncover new insights and speed the path to treatments, we’re giving science new tools and people with ALS new reasons for hope. Collaboration at this level has the power to change what’s possible.”

Sheri Strahl, MPH, MBA, President & CEO of ALS Network

“ALS demands urgency, innovation, and unity, by collaborating with ALS Finding a Cure and ALS Network, and by supporting bold, AI-driven research from experts around the world, we are accelerating the pace of discovery. The power of collaboration—across countries, disciplines, and lived experience—allows us to move faster, think bigger, and bring measurable progress closer to people living with ALS. Together, we are advancing research with purpose and urgency to transform what’s possible.”

David Hopkins, VP of Community Investment of Hop On A Cure

The 2025 grant recipients were selected for full funding for their visionary proposals that integrate AI-driven methodologies to tackle critical challenges in ALS research. The projects include:

1. Coupling Multimodal Active Learning to Bioengineered Brain Organoids to Accelerate ALS Discovery – Alice Stanton (Harvard Medical School), Farhan Kodaee (MIT), Sabrina Paganoni (Mass General Brigham)
2. Defining Neuroimmune Niches in ALS Through AI-Enhanced Spatial Multi-Omics add in the PIs names and university – David Gate, Yuan Luo (Northwestern University)
3. Stratifying Sporadic ALS Through Ai-Enabled, Multimodal Phenotypic Profiling add in the PIs names and university – Lani Wu, Steven Altschuler, Cathy Lomen-Hoerth (University of California, San Francisco)
4. Transforming ALS Research Through AI and Graph-Based Models add in the PIs names and university – Timothy Miller, Zachary Abrams, Grace Cooper, Philip Payne, Inez Oh (Washington University in St Louis)

About ALS Finding a Cure®

ALS Finding a Cure® (ALSFAC), is focused on identifying gaps in the scientific understanding of ALS that are preventing the development of a cure. The organization, a program of The Leandro P. Rizzuto Foundation, collaborates with numerous companies, ALS organizations, and pALS (people with ALS) and their families to ensure research efforts are non-duplicative, synergistic, and focused on the ultimate goal: finding a cure.

About the ALS Network

The ALS Network partners with the ALS community to drive the discovery of prevention strategies, treatments, and cures for ALS; provide access to quality care and connection; and promote initiatives to improve health outcomes. The ALS Network, formerly ALS

Golden West, serves people with ALS and their families throughout California, Hawaii, and beyond. For more information about ALS and the ALS Network visit our website at alsnetwork.org or email us at info@alsnetwork.org. You can also find us on social media at @yourALSnetwork.

About Hop On A Cure

Hop On A Cure started in 2022 after John Driskell Hopkins of Zac Brown Band was diagnosed with ALS. ALS is consistently one of the most underfunded diseases for research. Because of that, not much significant progress has been made since Lou Gehrig passed away from the disease in 1941. The mission of the foundation is to support research to prevent, reverse, and cure ALS while raising awareness, building a compassionate community, and unleashing the healing power of hope. For more information about Hop On A Cure visit www.hoponacure.org.