amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
grrlscientist | February 4, 2010tags: health, medicine, TEDMED,health care, ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, technology, internet, Jamie Heywood, TEDTalks, streaming video
When Jamie Heywood's brother was diagnosed with ALS, he devoted his life to fighting the disease as well. The Heywood brothers built an ingenious website where people share and track data on their illnesses -- and they discovered that the collective data had enormous power to comfort, explain and predict.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the…
rskloot | May 17, 2009Speaking of the debate over patents interfering with medical care, there's a story in today's New York Times that mentions the drug Iplex, which has shown promise for treating Lou Gehrig's disease -- a deadly and thus far untreatable degenerative disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).
From the article:
Iplex ... is believed to protect the motor neurons whose
death leads to paralysis in A.L.S. Some patients had persuaded their
doctors to prescribe the drug when the F.D.A. approved it in late 2006
for children with growth deficiencies. "I started on Tuesday," Debbie Gattoni…