About the Prize
What is the Longitude Prize on ALS?
The Longitude Prize on ALS is a £7.5m [~$10m USD] international programme that seeks to incentivise the use of AI-based approaches to transform therapeutic discovery for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND).
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, compute, technical expertise and a range of additional support and partnership opportunities.
What are the aims of the Prize?
Deliver and validate new, high-potential therapeutic drug targets
through the use of cutting-edge AI (or provide new evidence for known but unpublished targets).
Curate the largest datasets in ALS
and provide access to these data to all prize participants, with compute power and data support.
Build international, multi-disciplinary collaborations
across AI-focused biotech, computational biologists and ALS/neurodegenerative disease researchers.
Raise awareness of ALS globally
and campaign for better use of patient data.
Build a deeper understanding of ALS biology
to the benefit of the scientific and patient community.
Raise investor interest
in the therapeutic potential of discoveries from the Prize.
How is the Prize structured?
The Longitude Prize on ALS will run for five years and will comprise three key stages: Discover, Prioritise and Validate.
Stage 1: Discover
Number of teams: 20
Development time: 9 months
Award per team: £100,000
The Prize will fund twenty interdisciplinary teams to identify novel therapeutic targets for ALS, or provide new evidence for known but unvalidated targets. During a 9-month development period, teams will use AI-based methods to analyse datasets provided by the Prize and/or their own data sources. To ensure robustness and reproducibility, teams will be expected to replicate their findings. This stage will be entirely computational and supported through access to high-quality datasets, technical training, and a secure cloud platform with dedicated compute credits provided.
Stage 2: Prioritise
Number of teams: 10
Development time: 12 months
Award per team: £200,000
The Prize will fund ten multidisciplinary teams of computational and wet lab scientists to apply mixed-method approaches that strengthen confidence in, and expand the evidence base for, the proposed therapeutic targets. This stage will involve both computational and wet lab analysis. Teams may continue to develop up to 10 targets submitted from Stage 1 and will further narrow this list based on emerging evidence.
Stage 3: Validate
Number of teams: 5
Development time: 24 months
Award per team: £500,000
The Prize will fund five teams to carry out comprehensive wet lab validation of the most promising therapeutic target(s). While teams may choose to validate more than one target, they must ensure sufficient resources and scientific rigour to conduct effective studies. This stage is predominantly lab-based and aims to generate high-confidence data that can move targets closer to clinical application.
Winner Award
Number of teams: 1
Award: £1,000,000
The Prize will award one Winner who has demonstrated exceptional progress in validating therapeutic target(s) with the highest potential impact on ALS treatment.