ALS Therapy Development Institute
non-profit organization in the USA
The ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI) is a non-profit biotechnology research organization focused on finding treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). With a staff including more than 30 scientists, it operates a research and development program centered on ALS.
History
ALS TDI was founded as the ALS Therapy Development Foundation (ALS TDF) in 1999 by James Heywood, Robert Bonazoli, and Melinda Marsh Heywood after James' brother, Stephen Heywood, was diagnosed with the disease. Dr. Tennore Ramesh joined ALS-TDF when his sister in law was diagnosed with ALS and setup the research facility and served as Chief Scientific Officer from inception until 2003. The organization was initially funded through a donation from Stephen, as well as one from Alex and Brit d'Arbeloff. The Foundation's first therapy concept was to replace EAAT2 protein using gene therapy.
In 2004, the Foundation moved to a 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) location in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with an in-house lab. ALS TDF constructed a biosafety level 2 lab in 2005, allowing for the expansion of "gene therapy and cell-based treatment pipelines."
In 2005, the Foundation started the Tri-State Trek, an annual 270-mile bike ride from Boston, Massachusetts to Greenwich, Connecticut. The Trek has since grown to include over 400 participants and has raised more than $7 million for research.
In 2006 the ALS patient Augie Nieto became chairman of the board.
The public source identifies “ALS Therapy Development Institute” as non-profit organization in the USA. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Therapy, Development and Institute.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4652444. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1999, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “ALS Therapy Development Institute” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.