It is with great pleasure that I report to you on 3 important additions to the ALS Research and Clinical program here at Columbia. First, Dr. Paul Gordon will be joining the staff as the Associate Medical Director of the Center. Dr. Gordon graduated from the University of Arizona with highest honors; he trained in neurology at the Neurological Institute of Columbia University. He holds dual fellowships in Neuromuscular Disorders (The Cleveland Clinic Foundation) and Movement Disorders (Columbia University). He is board certified in neurology and physiology from the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and in electromyography from the American Board of Electrodiagnostic Medicine. He was previously the director of the neurodegenerative diseases section at the University of New Mexico. In April 2003 he will be appointed Assistant Professor of Neurology in the Department of Neurology at our Center working closely with Dr. Przedborski and me. Dr. Gordon’s areas of research include clinical trials, clinical interventions and experimental therapeutics in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He is currently the Principal Investigator and NIH grant recipient for the Phase III Mulit-Center trial of Minocycline in ALS ~ 3 million dollars in grant support for this study. The ALS Center at Columbia will serve as the coordinating center for Dr. Gordon’s grant. We are all looking forward to having Dr. Gordon develop his patient care practice as well as develop new clinical trial opportunities in ALS. Secondly, new to the ALS basic science program, under the direction and leadership of our Research Director Serge Przedborski are 2 new PhD fellows Hitoshi Kikuchi ands Makiko Nagai. Dr. Przedborski introduces these 2 individuals below. Dr. Kikuchi obtained his PhD degree in neuropathology at the Kyushu University in Japan. He Join Dr. Przedborski’s laboratory at Columbia University in 2001 to pursue his work in ALS. Currently his research effort focuses on the mechanisms underlying the demise of motor neurons death in ALS. To achieve this goal Dr. Kikuchi is studying the role of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in an experimental animals model of ALS. ER stress is a newly identified pathological process, which, if strong enough, can be lethal. So far, his results indicated that ER stress does occur in spinal cord motor neurons during the degenerative process in our ALS model. Dr. Kikuchi is now testing several experimental strategies to mitigate ER stress in motor neurons with the hope that by curtailing ER stress he may be able to attenuate neurodegenerative process and the ensuing motor deficit seen in our model. Makiko Nagai obtained her PhD degree in neuroscience at the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. During that time she excelled in molecular biology and successfully produced a rat model of ALS, which replicates all of the neuropathological and clinical hallmarks of the disease. She also joined Dr. Przedborski’s laboratory at Columbia University to pursue her work in ALS. In recognition to her outstanding achievement she was selected as the 1st recipient of the David A. Gardner Fellowship for Neuromuscular Research. This fellowship honors a great human being who supported research as a key MDA trustee all the while fighting his own battle with neuromuscular disease. From the very beginning of her stay in Dr. Przedborski’s laboratory, she expressed great interests in working on strategies aimed at repairing the motor neuron pathway based on the use of stem cells. This idea leads to the development of collaboration between Dr. Przedborski’s and Dr. Thomas Jessell’s laboratory at Columbia University to study this question. At this point, Dr. Nagai is still familiarizing herself with various new techniques, which will be required for the successful performance of her project, which should be starting in a few months. This first step toward her goal is performed under the guidance of Dr. Jessell, a world-renowned expert in the biology of motor neurons and, whose team was the first to succeed in directing differentiation of embryonic stem cells into motor neurons. We are entering the most exciting stage of ALS clinical and basic research activities. I am sure anyone who reads this Newsletter shares our excitement and enthusiasm. The road to a cure of ALS is a hard one, but we appear to have a map.