This session features a clinician scientist whose career in neurology and neuroscience focuses on understanding the underlying causes of ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases, as well as the factors that determine disease susceptibility versus disease resilience. Clinical studies have linked ALS risk with select occupations, environmental pollution, polygenic risk, and changes in the immune system. The speaker’s goal, motivated by the new ALS cases diagnosed weekly, is to make ALS a preventable disease by modifying currently identified and future ALS risk factors.
