Merit E. Cudkowicz, MD, MSc, receives lifetime award for ALS research: ‘I'm not done yet’

ByMerit Cudkowicz, MD, MSc

ByStephanie C. Viguers

Add topic to email alerts

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on Lung Cancer.

SAN DIEGO — The American Academy of Neurology honored Merit E. Cudkowicz, MD, MSc, FAAN, with its Lifetime Achievement Award for her extensive work in ALS research.

“I have really been blessed with a great career,” Cudkowicz, executive director of the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute and Julieanne Dorn Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, told Healio.

Cudkowicz was part of the team that discovered the first ALS gene and investigated the first gene therapy for it, ultimately leading to the FDA approval of Qalsody (tofersen, Biogen) for patients with SOD-1 ALS.

“To have been a part of that journey with so many others has been a huge highlight,” Cudkowicz said.

She also is one of the founders of the Northeast ALS (NEALS) consortium, a group that now encompasses 150 centers internationally and aims to discover new treatments through innovative research.

Even with all her accomplishments, Cudkowicz said “I’m not done yet.”

“I really want to develop therapies for people with what we call sporadic ALS,” she added. “So, the 90% of people who don’t have an identified gene.”

To do this, Cudkowicz has two initiatives underway: the HEALEY ALS platform trial, which is testing multiple therapies at once to accelerate progress, and the ALS MyMatch Program, which matches patients to drugs in phase 2a development so researchers “can learn about the best drugs before we bring them to the later stage.”

“I’m excited about those two initiatives and working with our entire NEALS consortium ... to find treatments for our patients,” she said.

For more information:

Merit E. Cudkowicz, MD, MSc, FAAN, can be reached at neurology@healio.com.

Sources/Disclosures

Collapse

Source:

Healio Interviews

Disclosures: Cudkowicz reports financial relationships with AB Science, AC Immune SA, Aclipse, Annals of Neurology, Biogen, Coya Therapeutics, Cytokinetics, Eli Lilly, Immunity Pharma, InFlectis, Locust Walk, Novartis, Ono Pharmaceutical, Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Pasithea Therapeutics, Pontifax, Praxis Precision Medicine, Transposon, QurAlis, Regeneron, VectorY. She also reports receiving publishing royalties from a publication relating to health care. Her institution(s) received support from ALS Finding a Cure, ALS ONE, Biohaven, Calico, Clene Nanomedicine, Denali, ITB, Johnson & Johnson, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, PharmAust, Prilenia, Seelos, UCB/RA and Woolsley.