Melissa Marr Joins RASCALS Board of Directors

This spirit of volunteerism also extends to our leadership. We have been fortunate to have some very bright and energetic people step forward to help plan how we might best serve the ALS community. With that in mind, we proudly announce that Melissa Marr has accepted the position of Marketing Director on the RASCALS Foundation Board of Directors.

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Breaking News: ALS Awareness Month Has Changed — to ALS Action Month

We are a 100% all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non-profit charity. No one takes a paycheck here and there are no administrative costs. That means 100% of all funds raised by the R.A.S.C.A.L.S. Foundation go directly to fighting ALS.

The money goes to fund promising treatment research and development. It helps with ALS family assistance, such as our annual Higher Education Scholarship program.

Categories: 501(c)(3) Non-Profit, ALS Community News, ALS Families, ALS News, Caretakers  |  Tags: 501(c)(3) ALS charity, ALS, ALS Awareness Month, ALS charity, ALS community, ALS cure, ALS diagnosis, ALS donations, ALS funding, ALS medical care, ALS research, ALS research funding, ALS treatments, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Bob Stehlin, Lou Gehrig's disease, PALS, RASCALS Foundation, Robert A. Stehlin Campaign for ALS, St.Louis RASCALS ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease amotrophic lateral sclerosis  |  No comments

Pitt Findings on Lou Gehrig’s Disease May Hold Hope

By Kaitlynn Riely for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 26, 2013 •
A person diagnosed this year with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, will receive basically the same prognosis as the New York Yankee did — an average life expectancy of two to five years.
More than 70 years after Gehrig’s death, [...]

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Pitt Team Finds Melatonin Delays ALS Symptom Onset and Death in Mice

Hoping to stop neuron death in ALS just as they did in Huntington’s, the research team treated mice bred to have an ALS-like disease with injections of melatonin or with a placebo. Compared to untreated animals, the melatonin group developed symptoms later, survived longer, and had less degeneration of motor neurons in the spinal cord.

Categories: ALS News, Research News, Technology, Treatments  |  Tags: ALS, ALS community, ALS research, ALS research funding, ALS treatments, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Bedford VA Medical System Boston, Bob Stehlin, Department of Defense, Department of Neurological Surgery Pitt School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Lou Gehrig's disease, Melatonin injections ALS, melatonin receptor 1 ALS, MT1 ALS, Muscular Dystrophy Association, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Ohio State University, PALS, RASCALS Foundation, Robert A. Stehlin Campaign for ALS, Robert Friedlander, St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center Phoenix, St.Louis RASCALS ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease amotrophic lateral sclerosis, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, University of Texas Medical School at Houston, VA Pittsburgh Health Care System, Weifang Medical University  |  No comments

Neuralstem ALS Trial Data Presented at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Meeting

“That our cells and method of delivery are safe in ALS patients bodes very well for expanding to other indications. We expect to commence our FDA-approved Phase I trial in chronic spinal cord injury later this year using the same methodology. We want to thank the surgeons at Emory, who developed these techniques, as well as the patients and their families who have taken part in the trial.”

Categories: ALS Community News, ALS Families, ALS News, Clinical Trials, Research News, Treatments  |  Tags: ALS, ALS Awareness Month, ALS cell therapy, ALS clinical trial, ALS community, ALS research, ALS research funding, ALS treatments, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Bob Stehlin, Intraspinal Stem Cell Transplantation in ALS, Karl Johe, Lou Gehrig's disease, Neuralstem Incorporated, NSI-566 Phase I trial ALS, PALS, RASCALS Foundation, Robert A. Stehlin Campaign for ALS, St.Louis RASCALS ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease amotrophic lateral sclerosis  |  No comments

110% Gratitude to All Our Volunteers

April marks National Volunteer Month. This observance holds very special meaning for all of us here at the Robert A. Stehlin Campaign for ALS (R.A.S.C.A.L.S.). That’s because we are a 100% all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non-profit charity. There are no administrative costs.
That means no salaries, payments, or perks for anyone. Out-of-pocket expenses truly means out of our [...]

Categories: 501(c)(3) Non-Profit, ALS Community News, ALS Families, ALS News, RASCALS Foundation News, Treatments  |  Tags: 501(c)(3) ALS charity, ALS, ALS Awareness Month, ALS community, ALS cure, ALS diagnosis, ALS diagnostics, ALS donations, ALS funding, ALS medical care, ALS research, ALS research funding, ALS treatments, ALS volunteers, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Bob Stehlin, Lou Gehrig's disease, PALS, RASCALS Foundation, Robert A. Stehlin Campaign for ALS, St.Louis RASCALS ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease amotrophic lateral sclerosis  |  No comments

NEALS SOD1 Research is First Antisense Oligonucleotide Trial for a Central Nervous System Disorder

Antisense Oligonucleotides May be Feasible ALS Therapeutic Strategy

BOSTON, Massachusetts, March 29, 2013 — Published online today in Lancet Neurology, an SOD1-related familial ALS trial under the direction of NEALS researchers Timothy Miller, MD, PhD (Washington University School of Medicine) and Merit Cudkowicz (Massachusetts General Hospital) indicates that antisense oligonucleotide delivery to the central nervous system may [...]

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‘RNA Sponge’ Mechanism May Cause ALS/FTD Neurodegeneration

Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have demonstrated that this ALS/FTD mutation may be harmful because it creates an “RNA sponge,” soaking up an important regulatory protein that binds RNA.

Categories: ALS News, Research News  |  Tags: ALS, ALS community, ALS medical care, ALS research, ALS research funding, ALS treatments, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center, Bob Stehlin, C9ORF72 gene, C9orf72 mutations, Emory University School of Medicine, frontotemporal dementia FTD, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Lou Gehrig's disease, Mickael Poidevin, National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01 NS051630 and R21NS067461), PALS, Peng Jin, RASCALS Foundation, RNA ALS, Robert A. Stehlin Campaign for ALS, St.Louis RASCALS ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease amotrophic lateral sclerosis, Thomas Wingo, Zihui Xu  |  No comments

Johns Hopkins Researchers Discover New Clues About How ALS Develops

The researchers also found, to their surprise, that suppressing an ALS-causing gene in oligodendrocytes of mice bred with the disease—while still allowing the gene to remain in the motor neurons—profoundly delayed the onset of ALS. It also prolonged survival of these mice by more than three months, a long time in the life span of a mouse. These observations suggest that oligodendrocytes play a very significant role in the early stage of the disease.

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Cytokinetics Inc. Announces Initiation of First-Time-in-Humans, Phase I Clinical Trial of CK-2127107

Cytokinetics, Incorporated announced today the initiation of a first-time-in-humans, Phase I clinical trial of CK-2127107 in healthy male volunteers. Cytokinetics is developing CK-2127107, a novel small molecule activator of the fast skeletal muscle troponin complex, for the potential improvement of skeletal muscle function in diseases and medical conditions associated with neuromuscular dysfunction, muscular weakness, and/or muscle fatigue. Like tirasemtiv, the lead drug candidate from the company’s skeletal muscle activator program, CK-2127107 slows the rate of calcium release from the regulatory troponin complex of fast skeletal muscle fibers, which sensitizes the sarcomere to calcium.

Categories: ALS News, Clinical Trials, Research News, Treatments, Uncategorized  |  Tags: ALS, ALS community, ALS funding, ALS medical care, ALS research, ALS research funding, ALS treatments, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Background on Fast Skeletal Muscle Activators ALS, BENEFIT-ALS (Blinded Evaluation of Neuromusclar Effects and Functional Improvement with Tirasemtiv in ALS), Bob Stehlin, CK-2127107, Cytokinetics Incorporated, Fady Malik, Lou Gehrig's disease, novel mechanism ALS, PALS, Phase I clinical trial, Phase I clinical trial CK-2127107, RASCALS Foundation, Robert A. Stehlin Campaign for ALS, Robert I. Blum, St.Louis RASCALS ALS Lou Gehrig's Disease amotrophic lateral sclerosis, tirasemtiv ALS  |  No comments