The Real ALS Challenge

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Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) (also known as Lou Gehrig' disease in the United States), is a part of one of the five neurological disorders that fall under Motor Neurone Disease (MND). ALS is a disorder that it involves the death of neurons, the cells that control voluntary muscle activity including speaking, walking, swallowing, and general movement of the body. It is a neurodegenerative and lethal disease with no cure and it is not known how it spreads, with 5-10% of cases being hereditary and the other 90-95% seeming to strike at random.

Symptoms

The lethality of the condition cannot be overstated, with an average lifespan of a diagnosed individual being cut to 3-5 years. About 50% of diagnosed individuals make it past year 3 and 20% make it past 5 years. After that the survival rate plummets even further. ALS is a debilitating disease with varied etiology characterized by rapidly progressive weakness, muscle atrophy and fasciculations, muscle spasticity, difficulty speaking (dysarthria), difficulty swallowing (dysphagia), and difficulty breathing (dyspnea). Very few cases of the disease are thought to have hereditary cause, with the majority being sporadic. Although oxidative stress has been blamed for the onset of this disease no definitive cause has been established.

Public Awareness

ALS received a lot of publicity in the last year, first with the viral Ice Bucket Challenge campaign that managed to raise millions, and then with the release of Theory of Everything several months ago, the biographical drama about the life of Stephen Hawking. In the recent Academy Awards, Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar for best actor for the Hawking biography, and in his thank you speech he said: “This Oscar belongs to all of those people around the world battling ALS. It belongs to one exceptional family - Stephen, Jane and the Hawking children."

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Research

Boosted by the public awareness and funding, ALS research has made more progress in the last 6 years, than in the last 100. Genetic discoveries in Motor Neurone Disease (MND) are moving at an unprecedented rate with these discoveries being translated into Petri dish and animal models of MND, in particular C9. These new models push the boundaries of our knowledge of MND and are combined with existing knowledge to guide identification and testing of promising candidate drugs. Fitzgerald has been heavily involved with supplying ALS and MND specific products targeting SOD1, S100 beta, Galectin 1 and CD14.

Download our Neurodegenerative Disease products PDF for a full list of ALS and MND products.

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