Analysis of Human ALS Tissues and Registry of ALS Patients
Study Purpose:
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease, is a progressive, terminal condition of muscle weakness that is associated with degeneration of neurons in the spinal cord and brain. This devastating disorder afflicts people in the prime of their lives. At the present time, there are no cures for this disorder, and current treatments are marginal at best. Despite years of intensive research, a fundamental understanding of this disease is still lacking. There is a need to identify both reliable markers of disease progression and effective treatments. The goal of this research is to bring a greater understanding of ALS patients closer to the research studies that can lead to new hypotheses and approaches.
Disease:
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Familial ALS, Sporadic ALSStudy Type:
Observational StudyStudy Category:
Study Status:
EnrollingPhase:
Not ApplicableStudy Chair(s)/Principal Investigator(s):
Jeffrey Loeb, MD University of Illinois at Chicago
Clinicaltrials.gov ID (11 digit #):
NCT05067179Neals Affiliated?
NoCoordinating Center Contact Information
University of Illinois at ChicagoGintare Daulys / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) / 312-413-7908
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Chicago, Illinois 60612 United States
Full Study Summary:
Patients will be approached during in-person or phone/online appointments and asked their consent to enter information and results from their physical examinations, electrodiagnostic testing, and other testing done as a standard of care and into a database to monitor disease progression and use them for research purposes. Also, the patients will be asked for consent to undergo a MRI scan.
In a second informed consent form, patients will be enrolled to perform a rapid postmortem autopsy and have the tissue banked for research purposes. It is important to keep the consents separate because some patients may not consent to this postmortem study, but would consent to the premortem studies.
The information gained from the premortem studies will be used during the postmortem examination to select tissue for further processing. Tissue from different regions, including brain, spinal cord, nerve and muscle will be processed in parallel for cellular and molecular analyses that include histology, immunostaining, in situ hybridization, protein, RNA, and small molecule analyses.