The $1M ALS Biomarker Prize Has Been Won!
Why Prizes
|
Biomarker Prize
|
Treatment Prize
|
Registered Teams
|
Register Now
|
Other Programs
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <tr> <td><span class=default> <!-- <div id="translate-this"><a href="http://translateth.is/" class="translate-this-button">Translate</a></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://x.translateth.is/translate-this.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> TranslateThis(); </script> --> <!-- startprint --> <span class=default><p><span></span>While prizes are the more visible core of our results-oriented model, we are also conscious of the need to create a vibrant and supportive arena in which our participating teams can effectively compete. Prize4Life is eager to collaborate and seek leveraged partnerships to ensure that appropriate infrastructure resources are in place to allow all competing teams equal opportunity to be successful.</p> <p>The ALS Forum</p> <p>As one example of such partnership: in June 2009, Prize4Life and the Alzheimer Research Forum launched a new ALS-focused internet portal known as the <a title="" href="http://www.researchals.org">The ALS Forum</a> (go to: <a href="http://www.researchals.org/">http://www.researchALS.org</a>). Reaction to the new web portal was swift and positive. The site offers ALS researchers around the world a one-stop access point for cutting edge research news and unique web-based resources.</p> <p>The Prize4Life SOD1 Mouse Colony </p> <p>Additionally, throughout the prize process would-be competitors for Prize4Life's ALS Treatment Prize expressed concern over the cost and availability of SOD1 mice to use in their preclinical studies. In response to these concerns, we currently partner with The Jackson Laboratory, the world's leading provider of mouse models for research, to maintain a mouse colony sufficient to provide adequate supplies of quality controlled mice to competing labs either free or deeply-discounted. We believe that easier access to this resource removes one of many obstacles researchers face in transforming their ideas into proven science. In addition to the mice, researchers receive information and mentoring to assure that protocols are properly designed and study outcomes are useful. To download a free copy of "Working With ALS Mice", click <a title="" href="http://www.researchals.org/uploaded_files/p4l_jax_sod1manual_20091202_29aPcx.pdf">here</a>.</p> <p>The Pooled Open Access Clinical Trials Database (PRO-ACT)</p> <p>There have been multiple large Phase II and Phase III ALS clinical trials conducted over the past 15 years. While the vast majority of these trials, with the exception of the Riluzole trials, have not resulted in the identification of new therapies for ALS, there is still great value in the patient data collected during the course of these studies. Despite their wealth of information, clinical trial datasets have not historically been made readily available to the ALS research community and comparisons across datasets are extremely difficult. Pooling data from existing public and private sources of trial data may yield a database of thousands of ALS patient records, which will be far larger than any single trial or existing dataset. Such a set of pooled data would not only yield useful information about many aspects of the conduct of ALS clinical trials, but could also be "data-mined" for unique observations, novel correlations, patterns of disease progress, epidemiological data, and a variety of still unconsidered analyses. </p> <p>With the support of the ALS Therapy Alliance, PRO-ACT Database project will design and build an ALS clinical trial database with merges datasets and an underlying searchable data platform. The PRO-ACT Database will be freely available, exclusively for research purposes, to members of the research and development (R&D) community (industry, government, and academe), which will provide the ALS research community with an invaluable resource in the effort to develop treatments and a cure. </p> <p>Prize4Life continues to explore a number of additional resource-creation initiatives in order to determine which would most benefit the ALS research community. Some projects currently under consideration include:</p> <ul> <li>A dynamic database of all currently known genetic information linked to ALS, and</li> <li>A platform for furthering communication and/or data sharing within the ALS research community.</li></ul></span> <!-- stopprint --> </span></td> </tr> </table>
