Cure ALS 

The Forbes Norris MDA/ALS Research & Treatment Center at CPMC has been at the forefront of national neuromuscular disease treatment and research for more than 40 years. We combine clinical care, research and multifaceted resources for families affected by this devastating disease.

More than one-third of the Center's budget is funded by philanthropy. These donations enable us to provide comprehensive, multidisciplinary care for patients and support services for their loved ones. Your generosity helps patients access clinical trials and support services that insurance often doesn’t cover.

Putting Patients First

Sandy Morris says the integrated care she’s receiving at CPMC’s Forbes Norris Center is “amazing,” because everyone at the Center is willing to stay with patients for the whole course of the disease. Her goal for her ALS clinical trial work matches the goal of the Center itself, “to leave this disease better than she found it.”

“This disease is uniquely cruel,” says Sandy Morris, “because every month, or week, or day, you lose more functionality, and with the decreasing mobility and ability to communicate, you can feel increasingly isolated.” Since her diagnosis, Morris has been working with the organization I AM ALS to ensure that clinical trials for potential new ALS treatments are designed “with humans in mind.”

Because ALS patients generally survive for two to five years after diagnosis, Morris says, “We need to advance ALS science faster, and enroll clinical trial participants like wildfire.”

Invest in Promising New Developments

CPMC’s philanthropic partners have supported many of the activities of the Forbes Norris MDA/ALS Research and Treatment Center. Your generosity brings us closer to developing new effective treatments for our patients.

Donors also help us make other discoveries. With your support, we proved therapists can teach ALS patients to use their artificial speech generating devices via telemedicine technology. Prior to this, insurance wouldn’t cover the cost of the equipment without in-person training.

Clinical Trial Highlights

Our center is the only Northern California site for a platform clinical trial, with three drugs (soon to be four) being tested simultaneously, potentially leading to accelerated drug development. Through other clinical trials, we have made additional advances, such as:

• Testing the Brainstorm’s NurOwn technique for harvesting stem cells from bone marrow
• Demonstrating encouraging results in slowing the rate of function loss
• Studying agents designed to block the effects of genetic mutations for the 10-20% of patients whose ALS is hereditary