ALS/MND Symposium and "Ask the Experts" Update

This year’s International ALS/MND Symposium started on November 27 in Sydney, Australia. According to ALS Association President & CEO Jane H. Gilbert, who is attending the symposium along with Chief Scientist Lucie Bruijn, Ph.D., the conference began with a discussion of the International Alliance’s strategic plan, which will be refined over the next several months and presented for adoption at the 2012 meeting in Chicago. 

Attendees from Japan made the first presentation on the conference’s opening day and discussed the earthquake that hit the island nation in March 2011.  The presenters explored how this event caused devastation across the country, lessons learned from the earthquake, and coping with a natural disaster when living with ALS.

Following the Japanese presentation, European researchers discussed ALS research and care in their respective countries.  Presenters from Germany stated that they have created a new website with an online counseling program for people living with ALS/MND, while Scottish researchers noted that diagnoses of the disease have doubled in Scotland since 2004.

The “Ask the Experts” session was held on the second day of the symposium and was streamed live and recorded.  To view the presentations and question and answer session, visit http://mnda.eventstreaming.tv; you will need to enter your name and email address followed by the password: “sydney” in lower case. 

The program does not start at the beginning of the recording.  The introduction begins about 13 minutes into the recording followed by presentations by Kevin Talbot, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Oxford (at 16 min.); Kevin Eggan, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (at 35 min.); Robert Brown, Jr., NEALS and the University of Massachusetts (at 60 min.); and Orla Hardiman, Clinical Professor of Neurology at the University of Dublin (at 1 hr.:22 min).  An almost one-hour-long question and answer session followed the presentations, and members from the ALS community posted queries about ALS to the researchers.