Breakthrough on ALS treatment seen

WORCESTER, Massachusetts: An international team of researchers has moved a step closer to understanding the crippling, fatal disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

Research led by John Landers, a PhD at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Medical School, and medical doctor Bryan Traynor at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health, has identified a new gene, KIF5A, associated with the development of ALS. KIF5A is one of a growing list of gene mutations found in ALS patients.