The patient-founded, global team will use AI and patient data to map ALS subtypes and identify precision therapeutic targets, with a focus on sporadic ALS.
NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, May 7, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Mosaic Neuroscience announced today that MOSAIC ALS, a global collaborative team bringing together Mosaic Neuroscience, the Humphrey Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, GenieUs Genomics, the Gale Hammell Lab at New York University, and additional scientific collaborators, has been selected as one of 20 teams worldwide to participate in Stage 1 of the Longitude Prize on ALS — a £7.5 million global challenge prize designed to accelerate therapeutic discovery for ALS, also known as Motor Neurone Disease. The team will receive £100,000 to support a nine-month computational discovery effort.
The collaboration will use AI and patient-derived molecular data to map ALS subtypes and identify precision therapeutic targets for each one. The effort is focused on sporadic ALS, which accounts for more than 90% of cases yet still lacks targeted therapeutic options and fit-for-purpose preclinical models.
Through the Longitude Prize on ALS, MOSAIC ALS gains access to the largest and most comprehensive ALS patient dataset of its kind — combining genomic sequences from 9,000 patients with epigenomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics data for over 2,000 cases.
Like cancer, ALS is increasingly understood not as a single disease, but as a mosaic of overlapping molecular subtypes. Yet most patients are still treated as if they all have the same disease. The team aims to change that by building a more precise framework for understanding ALS biology and identifying therapeutic targets matched to distinct patient subgroups.
The team brings together expertise spanning computational biology, genomics, translational neuroscience, and disease modeling. Computational development is co-led by Sergiusz Wesolowski, PhD, Head of AI & Data Science at Mosaic Neuroscience, and Jack Humphrey, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Additional scientific expertise is contributed by Albert La Spada, MD, PhD (UC Irvine), Alyssa Coyne, PhD (Johns Hopkins), Jimena Andersen, PhD (Emory University), Sandrine Da Cruz, PhD (VIB-KU Leuven), Jinsy Andrews, MD, MSc (NYU), and iXCells Biotechnologies.
Bernie Zipprich, MBA, Co-Founder and CEO, Mosaic Neuroscience PBC:
“If ALS is biologically diverse, then drug discovery needs to become more precise. The Longitude Prize on ALS gives us a chance to bring together an exceptional group of partners to pursue that goal for patients who have been left behind by one-size-fits-all approaches. As someone living with ALS, I know firsthand how varied this disease can be and how urgently patients need treatments that reflect that reality.”
The collaboration also brings together two companies founded by people living with sporadic ALS. GenieUs Genomics was co-founded by Duncan Bull, a Sydney-based entrepreneur diagnosed with sporadic ALS in 2013, who launched GenieUs to help address the fact that most ALS patients lack a known genetic explanation or a precision treatment path.
Eugene Brandon, PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Mosaic Neuroscience: “What makes this effort especially compelling is the combination of high-quality patient data, advanced computational methods, and deep ALS translational expertise. We are aiming not only to identify promising subtype-specific targets, but to generate findings that can help the broader field build better models and therapies addressing the full spectrum of ALS.”
About 32,000 Americans are currently living with ALS, and roughly 1 in 400 people will develop the disease in their lifetime. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to worsening muscle weakness and eventual loss of the ability to walk, speak, eat, and breathe. It remains generally fatal within 2 to 5 years of diagnosis, with no durable treatment for the vast majority of patients.
About Mosaic Neuroscience
Mosaic Neuroscience PBC is a public benefit company focused on accelerating precision medicine for ALS and related neurodegenerative diseases.
About the Longitude Prize on ALS
The Longitude Prize on ALS is a £7.5 million prize to incentivize AI-based approaches to transform drug discovery for ALS, the most common form of motor neurone disease. Visit als.longitudeprize.org
About Challenge Works / Nesta
Challenge Works designs and runs challenge prizes to spark innovation in science, technology and society. It is part of Nesta, the research and innovation foundation.
Eugene Brandon, PhD
Mosaic Neuroscience
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