AsianScientist (Jul. 30, 2025) – A new £7.5 million (~$10 million) Longitude Prize on ALS has been announced to incentivise the use of AI to accelerate therapeutic discovery for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND).
The challenge, open for entries from June 25, 2025, until December 3, 2025, will initially award 20 teams £100,000 each in early 2026, with one team going on to win £1 million at the end of the five year Prize.
The Prize is principally funded by the Motor Neurone Disease Association and designed and delivered by Challenge Works, supported by Nesta, alongside additional global funders.
What is ALS?
ALS is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with an average life expectancy post-diagnosis of just two to four years. It is the most common form of Motor Neurone Disease (MND), in which messages from the motor neurones gradually stop reaching the muscles. This leads the muscles to weaken, stiffen and waste, which can affect how individuals walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe.
Although some very limited treatments exist to slow the progression of ALS for a short time, the complexity of the disease means that there are no long-term treatments and no cure. For the first time, however, advances in AI mean innovators now have the opportunity to potentially outpace the disease by unlocking vast quantities of patient data that have been generated in the last decade.
“Never before have we had the power to unlock the complexity of MND, and in particular ALS, and accelerate along the road to long-term treatments, and, I hope one day, a cure,” said Tris Dyson, managing director at Challenge Works, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2023.
“The Longitude Prize on ALS makes this possible, convening the largest data set of ALS patient data of its kind ever made available and rewarding researchers to use AI to identify the most promising drug targets,” Dyson added.
The five-year Prize will see global multidisciplinary teams compete in a three-phased programme to identify, prioritise and validate high-potential drug targets for ALS. To drive discovery, the Prize has brought together a range of ALS datasets, working with data holders worldwide, and participants will be provided with access to these data, funding, technical expertise and a range of additional support and partnership opportunities.
Who they are looking for
The Prize will award applicants from across medical research, biotechnology, computational biology and AI, and will support the top 20 most promising applications who show high potential in both their proposed methodology and team make-up, which should bring together expertise from across multiple disciplines including ALS research and computational biology.
“Empowering some of the brightest minds across science and technology to come together, the Longitude Prize on ALS will initiate transformative change for people living with motor neurone disease,” said Tanya Curry, Chief Executive at the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
“We are investing as a principal funder as enabling such collaborations, as well as the level of unprecedented data we’re working to unlock, marks the start of a significant milestone for drug discovery, the MND Association and wider MND community in how we understand and consequently tackle the disease,” Curry added.
The Longitude Prize on ALS is the third Longitude Prize run by Challenge Works to incentivise breakthrough solutions for some of the world’s most challenging issues. It follows the success of the Longitude Prize on AMR that announced a winner in 2024, and the Longitude Prize on Dementia that will announce a winner in 2026.
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Source: Longitude Prize on ALS ; Image: Longitude Prize on ALS
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