Awards and Prizes Recognizing Innovation in ALS
Email: HealeyAMGCenterforALS@mgh.harvard.edu
Overview
The Healey & AMG Center offers four prizes for innovation in ALS as global awards celebrating advances in research and care: the Sean M. Healey International Prize for Innovation in ALS, the Gupta Family Endowed Prize for Innovation in ALS Care, the Drs. Ayeez and Shelena Lalji & Family ALS Endowed Award for Innovative Healing, and the Drs. Ayeez and Shelena Lalji & Family Student Scholar Award for Repair and Regenerative Mechanisms in ALS.
Sean M. Healey International Prize for Innovation in ALS
The Sean M. Healey International Prize for Innovation in ALS Research recognizes an individual or a team of investigators who catalyze exceptional discoveries leading to a transformative advance in therapy development in ALS.
Established in 2019, Healey & AMG Center Director Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MsC said of the award “My vision for the Healey Center International Prize for Innovation is that it will recognize forward-thinking innovators to join the cause and find the cure." View the 2026 nomination portal
The global team of researchers discovered that nucleotide-repeat expansions can cause ALS, revealing disease mechanisms and therapeutic targets.
Recipients include Bryan Traynor, MD, PhD, MMSc, FRCPI, Nancy Bonini, PhD, Aaron Gitler, PhD, and Rosa Rademakers, PhD.
The BrainGate team is developing groundbreaking Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) to restore communication, mobility and independence in a variety of neurological diseases including ALS, spinal cord injury, and stroke.
Recipients include Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD, Nicholas Au Yong, MD, PhD, David Brandman, MD, PhD, FRCSC, Sydney Cash, MD, PhD, John Donoghue, PhD, Jaimie Henderson, MD, Chethan Pandarinath, PhD, Dan Rubin, MD, PhD, John Simeral, PhD, Sergey Stavisky, PhD, Frank Willett, PhD, and Ziv Williams, MD.
The global team is responsible for the establishment of neurofilament biomarkers as an early diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for ALS.
Recipients include Robert Bowser, PhD, Martin Turner, MBBS, PhD, FRCP, Michael Benatar, MBChB, DPhil, Andrea Malaspina, MBBS, PhD, FRCP, Markus Otto, MD, and the team from Biogen Therapeutics.
The team that brought innovation, rapid development, and efficacy in Phase 2 clinical trials that led to the FDA approval of Relyvrio as a new treatment for ALS, The FDA approved Relyvrio in September, after clinical data showed that the medication slowed disease progression, extending the lives of patients by several months.
Recipients include Joshua Cohen, Justin Klee, Kent Leslie, Sabrina Paganoni, MD PhD, James Berry, MD MPH, Jinsy Andrews, MD MSc, and Jeremy Shefner, MD PhD.
PRO-ACT, the Pooled Resource Open-Access ALS Clinical Trials Database, awarded for building the largest ALS clinical trials dataset ever created. PRO-ACT merges data from existing publicly- and privately-conducted ALS clinical trials to generate an invaluable resource for accelerating discovery in the field of ALS.
Recipients include Avichai Kremer, Melanie Leitner, Neta Zach, and Alexander Sherman.
MinE, awarded for developing the largest single disease whole genome sequencing project in the world.
Recipients include Ammar Al-Chalabi, Jan H. Veldink, Orla Hardiman, Phillip Van Damme, Leonard H. van den Berg, Jonathan D. Glass, John Landers, and Evy Reviers.
The team was awarded for their work in creating the first clinical trial of antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapy for ALS.
Recipients include Don Cleveland, PhD, Richard Smith, MD, Toby Ferguson, MD, PhD, Timothy Miller, MD, PhD, and Frank Bennet, PhD.
Gupta Family Endowed Prize for Innovation in ALS Care
The ALS Residence Initiative, awarded for creating the first fully accessible, tech-enabled ALS residence model.
Recipients include Barry Berman and Steve Saling
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center ALS Clinic, awarded for pioneering decentralized multidisciplinary ALS care using digital health and targeted remote monitoring technologies.
Recipients include Amit Chahwala, BS, Andrew Geronimo, PhD, James Grogan, MD, Yojana Kanade, MS, CCR, Mansoureh Mamarabadi, MD, Zachary Simmons, MD, and Susan Walsh, RN, MSN, accepting the prize.
The Drs. Ayeez and Shelena Lalji & Family ALS Endowed Award for Innovative Healing
The global team was awarded for the development of a therapy to target FUS in people living with ALS, demonstrating slowing and even reversing the disease course of FUS ALS in some people.
Recipients include Neil Shneider, MD, PhD, Robert Brown, MD, DPhil, Sandrine Da Cruz, PhD, Paymaan Jafar-Nejad, MD, and Frank Rigo, PhD.
The Answer ALS Team and the team responsible for identifying Stathmin-2 as a therapeutic target for ALS.
Recipients include Clive N. Svendsen, Jeffrey Rothstein, and the Answer ALS Team, as well as Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne, Don Cleveland, Jone Lopez-Erauskin, Zevik Melamed, and Kevin Eggan.
The Drs. Ayeez and Shelena Lalji & Family Student Scholar Award
"Our BrainGate team is deeply honored to receive the Healey International Prize. This incredible recognition highlights both the progress that can emerge from collaborative, multidisciplinary research, and the broad potential for implantable BCIs to maintain or restore lost neurologic function for people with ALS or other forms of paralysis."
2024 Award Recipients of the Sean M. Healey International Prize for Innovation in ALS