Les Turner Symposium on ALS

Monday, Nov. 3, 2025

Thanks to everyone who participated in the 15th annual Les Turner Symposium on ALS! Recordings of the presentations are posted below.

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Read about this year's Symposium and latest research advancements.

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Symposium Booklet

Abstracts for Poster Presentations

Keynote Presentation: Development of Designer DNA Drug Therapy for Neurodegenerative Disease (2:30 - 3:35 p.m.)

Don Cleveland, PhD, is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego. An internationally heralded expert in cancer biology, he earned a PhD in biochemistry from Princeton University. He has been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.

Cleveland purified and characterized the first microtubule associated protein – tau – which misassembles in Alzheimer’s disease and chronic brain injury. He uncovered mechanisms of motor neuron degeneration in ALS, demonstrating both neurofilament disorganization and toxicity of mutant superoxide dismutase. He showed that motor neuron death in inherited ALS is non-cell autonomous, requiring mutant damage to both neurons and neighboring glial cells. He developed “designer DNA drugs” (antisense oligonucleotides) for silencing disease-causing genes, with clinical trials now ongoing in ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases.

For his groundbreaking contributions to science and medicine, Cleveland has received three Jacob Javits Merit Awards from the NIH, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Sean M. Healey International Prize for Innovation in ALS, the Lalji & Family ALS Endowed Award, the Rainwater Prize, India’s Genome Valley Excellence Award, the Katharine Berkan Judd Award from Memorial Sloan Kettering, the E.B. Wilson Medal from the American Society for Cell Biology, and the 2025 Research Award from Hope Funds for Cancer Research.

Presentation Speakers

Yvette Wong, PhD

Insights into RNA Granule and Mitochondria Crosstalk in ALS from Super-Resolution Live Microscopy (9:20 - 9:50 a.m.)

Yvette Wong, PhD, is an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Her lab uses super-resolution live microscopy to uncover new pathways regulating organelle dynamics and inter-organelle contact sites and their roles in neurodegenerative diseases including ALS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Charcot-Marie Tooth disease. She received her PhD in Neuroscience from University of Pennsylvania and conducted her postdoctoral training at Northwestern University with Dr. Dimitri Krainc. She has received awards including the Warren Alpert Scholars in Neuroscience Award, the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, the DP2 New Innovator Award, and the American Neurological Association Grass Foundation Award in Neuroscience.

Adrian Isaacs, PhD

New Disease Mechanisms and Therapeutic Approaches for C9orf72 ALS/FTD (9:50 - 10:30 a.m.)

Adrian Isaacs, PhD is Professor of Neurodegenerative Disease at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and a founding investigator of the UK Dementia Research Institute. His research focuses on the genetic and molecular mechanisms that cause ALS and frontotemporal dementia. This includes biomarker development and use of iPSCs and high-throughput screening to develop new therapeutic approaches.

Han-Xiang Deng, MD, PhD

Defective Transport of Large Dense-Core Vesicles Underlies Neurodegeneration in ALS5/SPG11 (10:50 - 11:20 a.m.)

Han-Xiang Deng, MD, PhD, is a research professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He received training in clinical medicine and research in China and Japan. His research focuses on identifying genetic causes of diseases, elucidating their underlying mechanisms, and providing the pathogenic basis for designing rational therapies. He has contributed to the discovery of 11 disease-causing genes, including SOD1 (ALS1), Alsin (ALS2), and UBQLN2 (ALS15). He also played a pivotal role in developing and characterizing their corresponding disease mouse models, enabling mechanistic insights and facilitating therapeutic development.

Christine Vande Velde, PhD

Stress Granules in ALS/FTD (11:20 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.)

Dr. Christine Vande Velde’s work focuses on understanding the cell biology at the root of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). For many years, Dr. Vande Velde’s team focused on SOD1, how it misfolded and accumulated on spinal cord mitochondria, and impacted mitochondrial function. More recently, Dr. Vande Velde’s team has shifted to TDP-43 and stress granule dynamics in the context of disease, and normal physiology. They have mapped out that TDP-43 regulates stress granule dynamics via G3BP1. Their most recent work demonstrates that TDP-43 stabilizes the mRNA encoding G3BP1, a mechanism which is compromised in ALS patient neurons bearing TDP-43 pathology. In addition, they have shown that stress granule formation is disrupted in vivo by aging as well as in a mouse model having a TDP-43 mutation. A second major focus is how TDP-43 regulates the alternative splicing of another ALS-related RBP, hnRNP A1.

Dr. Vande Velde has participated in numerous grant and manuscript reviews. Dr. Vande Velde has served the larger Canadian ALS community by serving as Co-Chair of the Scientific and Medical Advisory Council of the ALS Society of Canada and as a member of the ALS Canada Board of Directors (2017-2023).

P. Hande Ozdinler, PhD

The Importance of Building Cell-Based and Mechanism-Focused Drug Discovery (12:00 - 12:30 p.m.)

P. Hande Ozdinler, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is also a faculty member of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, the Les Turner ALS Center at Northwestern Medicine, the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Research Center.

Senda Ajroud-Driss, MD

Dr. Ajroud-Driss led a Q&A session with Dr. Don Cleveland (3:45 - 4:15 p.m.)

Senda Ajroud-Driss, MD, is the Director of the Lois Insolia ALS Clinic; Les Turner ALS Foundation/Herbert C. Wenske Professor in Neurology. Dr. Ajroud-Driss completed her fellowship at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University in 2005 and has extensive expertise in neuromuscular disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), amyloid neuropathy, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, limb girdle muscular dystrophy, and myasthenia gravis.