At Massachusetts General, our patients inspire us.
The support of the Salah Foundation has been instrumental in helping Sabrina Paganoni, MD, PhD, develop more patient-friendly trial designs and expand the use of remote monitoring tools for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease.
“Patients are our partners in our search for a cure for this disease,” Dr. Paganoni says. “With their help, I know we can make a big impact.”
Dr. Paganoni is a physician investigator at the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. She is also a respected and award-winning scientist, with more than 90 articles published in scientific journals.
Massachusetts General is a leading hospital for clinical care and research on ALS and is one of the few academic medical centers that provides a direct connection between the laboratory research and patient care. Patients seen at the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center ALS can participate in drug trials while working collaboratively with an ALS specialist.
“The generosity of our patients allows physician-scientists like me to respond to what’s important to individuals and their quality of life, which we incorporate into our trial criteria,” Dr. Paganoni says. “The Salah Foundation support allowed us to design and carry out the patient-friendly SURE-ALS2 clinical trial and to test a smart phone app that is now used widely in clinical research for remote monitoring of our patients.”
Dr. Paganoni and the entire clinical research team at the Healey Center integrate a patient-advisory team into every clinical trial design.
“The inclusion of our patients’ priorities is central to our success,” says Dr. Paganoni, who is part of the team that recently launched the HEALEY ALS Platform trial.
This research gives hope to the ALS patients and their families throughout the world.