Frederick “Eric” Arnold, PhD, an assistant professor of Genetics and collaborators from the University of Idaho have been selected to receive a £100,000 Discovery Award through the Longitude Prize on ALS, an international initiative focused on accelerating the discovery of new treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using artificial intelligence.
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells controlling voluntary muscle movement, leading to worsening paralysis and loss of motor function. Despite decades of research, treatment options remain limited, making innovative approaches to drug discovery critically important. The Longitude Prize on ALS was created to help address this challenge by supporting multidisciplinary teams working at the intersection of biomedical research, data science, and artificial intelligence.
Arnold’s team (Team Stormo) was recognized for its collaborative research effort leveraging artificial intelligence and computational approaches to better understand ALS biology and identify promising therapeutic targets. The team will use an AI model to combine biological data from ALS patients into a connected map or “knowledge graph” to study how genes interact as a system rather than in isolation.
The Discovery Award places the Arnold lab and its collaborators among 20 internationally selected teams advancing AI-driven strategies to uncover new therapeutic pathways for ALS research. In addition to funding, award recipients will gain access to some of the world’s most comprehensive ALS datasets, enabling researchers to analyze large-scale genetic, molecular, imaging, and clinical data in pursuit of new treatment discoveries.