A Glimpse Inside ALS TDI
This morning, I walked through the lab at ALS TDI, as I have thousands of times in the last 20 years.
I greeted Ken Thompson, our Vice President of Lab Operations, as he lugged a dolly of supplies toward the in vivo facility. His title sounds fancy, but he is not. He is humble, and caring; having lost his best friend to this disease 19 years ago. He knows everything about this place, and it wouldn’t run without him. But, if you told him that, he’d blush and dissent.
I pass Research Associate Andy Moreno’s desk, which is duly decorated for his recent 50th birthday. Andy was in his 20’s when he came to TDI.
A meeting is happening in the Zubatch Conference Room; named for Brian Zubatch, a fabulously funny guy who lost his battle with ALS in 2021. The ARC (ALS Research Collaborative) Team has gathered to discuss our accelerometry (wireless devices that capture movement data from people living with ALS) data, and the impact it is already having on the work of collaborators across the globe. While scientist Josh Berman sits in that meeting, I take a fork to this morning’s baked masterpiece he has left for us all on a communal table. Today’s offering is Maple Cinnamon Pain de Mie.
The Cell Biology team is in the Cor2D2 (lots of Star Wars fans around here) Robotics room. The custom-designed robot is running drug screening experiments on stem cells at a speed and level of accuracy that a human could not achieve. Did you know that we can take blood and skin samples from people living with ALS, and differentiate (reprogram) them into ALS-relevant cells like motor neurons, to create cellular models of this disease?
BTW, they don’t let me in this room, so I wave awkwardly.
On my way to set up for a meeting with a family recently facing ALS, who, like you are welcome to do, any time, is coming in to tour the lab, I walk the hallways lined with photos of those we work in honor of: people with ALS. This lab belongs to the ALS community. They/You built it. They/you make all of this work possible. So, the people we work for cover the walls here. We tell their stories every day. Every scientist is motivated by them. I knew and know most of them….better, stronger people than I could ever be.
At ALS TDI, our science is blinded, but our hearts are not. We are doing some of the best work in the field, and we are doing it for some of the best people on the planet.
Come see the lab. I’ll introduce you to some of them.
And, in the meantime, thank you for helping us get this work done. We are so very grateful.
-Carol Hamilton, SVP of Development at ALS TDI
