Tag Archives: ALS

He took an ALS drug before getting sick — and it may have worked

He took an ALS drug before getting sick — and it may have worked

For over an hour, Jeff Vierstra lay still in Columbia University’s ALS clinic, as a doctor poked him ankle-to-throat with an electric needle. Sometimes, he wiggled it around in Vierstra’s skin. Sometimes, he asked Vierstra to flex a muscle. A computer tracked the results. Later, another doctor would read Vierstra’s future in the graphs it wrote, fate engraved in the …

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Pocket-size model of ALS could pave the way for new treatments

Pocket-size model of ALS could pave the way for new treatments

Scientists invented a pocket-sized model of the most common form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The “disease-on-a-chip,” made using stem cells, could pave the way for new treatments for the progressive condition, the researchers say. In ALS, the brain and spinal-cord cells that control voluntary muscle movements — known as motor neurons — break down and die. As a result, …

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