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The Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS is pleased to announce that the ALS Residence Initiative (ALSRI) was awarded the 2025 Gupta Family Endowed Prize for Innovation in ALS Care. Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MSC, Director of the Healey & AMG Center for ALS, presented the prize to Steve Saling, CEO of ALSRI, and Barry Berman, CEO of Chelsea Jewish Lifecare, at the 24th Annual NEALS Consortium Meeting.

The Gupta Family Endowed Prize is a global prize awarded to a nominated team who has developed promising new approaches to improving care for people with ALS. The goal of this prize is to encourage idea sharing, innovation, and forward thinking on scalable ongoing projects that have directly improved ALS patient care.

The selection committee awarded the 2025 Gupta Family Endowed Prize to the ALSRI because of their work in creating the first fully accessible, tech-enabled ALS residence model. This innovation demonstrates ALSRI’s commitment to initiating ground-breaking new approaches that lead to exceptional care for individuals living with ALS.

In partnership with Chelsea Jewish Lifecare, ALSRI designed and built the award-winning Leonard Florence Center for Living (LFCL), containing the Steve Saling ALS Residence. Saling envisioned building a place where people with ALS could live safely with autonomy and real quality of life. The residence features private suites, a deli, a café, landscaped outdoor areas, and most critically, cutting-edge environmental control systems. Using eye-tracking and other assistive technology, residents can independently open doors, control lighting, communicate, and even drive their wheelchairs – all without needing physical movement. Steve’s motto is, “Until medicine proves otherwise, technology IS the cure,” and the ALSRI has transformed lives with technology.

“While we honor and respect the incredible research to treat and cure ALS being done across the country and the world, the ALS Residences at the Leonard Florence Center for Living have set out to demonstrate that until medicine proves otherwise, technology and compassionate skilled care are the cure,” says Steve. “Thank you to the Gupta family, the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Mass General, and the Northeast ALS Consortium for recognizing our efforts.”

“The ALSRI has already made a significant impact on the ALS community and will continue to do so by expanding their model to other cities across the country,” says Dr. Cudkowicz. “We are proud to award the ALSRI with this prize and look forward to seeing them continue to pioneer new approaches. I am grateful to the Gupta family for supporting this work.”

To learn more about the Gupta Family Prize and previous winners, please visit this page. For more information about the Sean M. Healey and AMG Center for ALS, please visit our website.

Background on ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most prevalent adult-onset progressive motor neuron disease, affecting approximately 30,000 people in the U.S. and an estimated 500,000 people worldwide. ALS causes the progressive degeneration of motor neurons, resulting in muscle weakness and atrophy. There is an urgent need to understand the biology of ALS and to develop effective therapies.

About the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Mass General

At the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Mass General, we are committed to bringing together a global network of scientists, physicians, nurses, foundations, federal agencies, and people living with ALS, their loved ones, and caregivers to accelerate the pace of ALS therapy discovery and development.

Launched in November 2018, the Healey & AMG Center, under the leadership of Merit Cudkowicz, MD and a Science Advisory Council of international experts, is reimagining how to develop and test the most promising therapies to treat the disease, identify cures and ultimately prevent it.

With many clinical trials and lab-based research studies in progress right now, we are ushering in a new phase of ALS treatment and care. Together, we will find the cures.