I’ve always loved to travel and I planned to continue to travel even after being diagnosed with ALS in 1999 (thankfully, a slow-progressing form).

I especially wanted to visit Israel, drawn by the history, the culture and the chance to reconnect to my Jewish roots. Could I do it in a wheelchair? Is Jerusalem accessible? What about wheelchair-accessible bathrooms?

An urgent need exists for biomarkers — biological indicators — in ALS research that can be used:

Bryan Traynor

Even as some scientists work to develop animal and human cellular models of C9ORF72-related ALS (see C9ORF72 Research Models), others already are targeting the gene with experimental therapies designed to inactivate it or the repeat expansion it harbors.

Phillip Wong, professor in the departments of pathology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, is working — with MDA support — to develop research mouse models of C9ORF72-related ALS.

With colleagues, he plans to use the models to study more closely the mechanism by which the C9ORF72 mutation gives rise to motor neuron degeneration and disease. The mice also will be made available for study by other researchers via the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, which manages colonies of mice to supply research institutions and labs.

In September 2011, two research teams working independently added chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9ORF72) to the list of genes that, when mutated, can cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

The finding sparked a great deal of interest in the ALS research community for several reasons, including: