Longitude Prize on ALS Announces Judge Panel

October 21, 2025

By Bio-IT World Staff 

October 21, 2025 | Last month, the Longitude Prize on ALS announced the judgement panel for the prize. The panel consists of leaders and experts from neuroscience, technology, and pharmaceutical fields from around the world. Marc Barlow, chair of the Prize’s patient advocacy committee, is a part of the panel and will act as the patient spokesperson. 

Applications are open until Dec. 3, 2025. The next stage will take place April 2026, where 20 teams will receive about $133,000 to identify new, high-potential therapeutic targets.   

The judges are: 

  • Ammar Al-Chalabi, Ph.D., professor of neurology and complex disease genetics at King’s College London; director of the King’s motor neuron disease care and research center; and co-director of the UK Motor Neuron Disease Research Institute
  • Jeffrey Rothstein, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and founder and director of the Packard Center for ALS research
  • Matthew Kiernan, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., CEO and institute director of Neuroscience Research Australia, with expertise in neurodegenerative diseases
  • Nortina Shahrizaila, M.B.B.S., professor of neurology at University of Malaysia and president-elect of the Pan-Asian Consortium for Treatment and Research in ALS 
  • Taslim Saiyed, Ph.D., director and CEO of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (India)
  • Ernest Fraenkel, Ph.D., professor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-director of the center for data-driven therapeutics 
  • Petrina Kamya, Ph.D., global head of AI platforms at Insilico Medicine (Canada)
  • Fabian Theis, Ph.D., head of the computational health center at Helmholtz Munich and chair of the mathematical modeling of biological systems program at the Technical University of Munich
  • Jackie Hunter, Ph.D., founder of OI Pharma Partners and CEO of Benevolent Bio (UK)
  • Lisa Broad, Ph.D., vice president of neuroscience and managing director of Lilly Research Labs (UK)
  • Vishal Gulati, M.D., founding and managing partner of Recode Ventures (UK) 

The Longitude Prize on ALS’ mission is to identify and validate drug targets and pathways relevant to the progression of ALS. There is an abundance of open-source data on the disease from mostly academic sources all over the world. The Longitude Prize aims to organize and compile the data, identify the subsets, and eventually develop new therapeutics.