ALS research at UMass Medical School

The new nine-story, 350,000-square-foot new education and research building on the UMass Chan campus has an official name: the Paul J. DiMare Center.

MD/PhD student Abigail Hiller has received an award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study the role genes linked to Alzheimer’s disease play in ALS.

New study led by Nils Henninger, MD, PhD'18, suggests interplay between genetic factors and traumatic brain injury in behavioral and neurological deficits related to ALS and FTD in mice.

Military veterans face a higher risk of ALS than the civilian population, according to years of studies. UMass Chan researchers are pursuing therapies to address the biological basis for this fatal neurodegenerative disease and work with clinical partners to provide expert rehabilitation for veterans.

UMass Chan Medical School has signed a three-year sponsored research agreement with NeuShen Therapeutics Inc. to investigate a gene therapy treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Jun Xie, PhD, and Guangping Gao, PhD, are leading the project for UMass Chan.

PhD candidate David Keener has received a National Institutes of Health grant to fund his research project on Rett syndrome, a genetic neurodevelopmental disease generally diagnosed in girls ages 6 to 18 months.

Top story: An international team of investigators has discovered that an inorganic polyphosphate released by nerve cells known as astrocytes in people with ALS and frontotemporal dementia contributes to the motor neuron death that is the signature of these diseases.

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey toured the Veterans Affairs community-based outpatient clinic on the campus of UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester on Tuesday.

ALS research at UMass Chan Medical School is the big beneficiary as select Boston Marathon runners raise tens of thousands of dollars each year. This year, five competitors in the April 18 event are running as part of the UMass Chan ALS Cellucci Fund Boston Marathon team and two sons of the late Jake Kennedy will run in support of the Jake Kennedy ALS Fund.

PhD student Megan Fowler-Magaw is researching the pathogenesis of ALS, using a specific gene that is found in 97 percent of cases.