Prize4Life launched the DREAM-Phil Bowen ALS Prediction Prize4Life on July 11, 2012. In our on-going efforts to accelerate breakthroughs, we have partnered with the Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS) and the ALS Therapy Alliance (ATA) to develop the Pooled Resource Open-Access ALS Clinical Trials (PRO-ACT) data base, the largest database of clinical data from ALS patients ever created. The database will be openly available for research purposes starting in December 2012, but before that, as a demonstration of what "Big Data" can do for ALS patients, we have launched a challenge: predict the progression of ALS and win up to $25,000!

The challenge aims to confront a basic puzzling question in ALS: most patients are like Lou Gehrig, with a rapidly progressing disease course. Some patients, however, turn out to be more like Stephen Hawking, where the disease progression is delayed. What separates the Lou Gehrigs from the Stephen Hawkings? Solving this mystery is important, for patients and their families and for those planning clinical trials of potential new treatments. Now we finally have the data that may hold the key. 

The ALS Prediction Prize challenge is being run on the Innocentive prize platform (www.InnoCentive.com) in partnership with The DREAM Project (Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods), which is sponsored by IBM, Columbia University, NIH Roadmap Initiative, and The New York Academy of Sciences. 

The ALS Prediction Prize Judges