How artificial intelligence will supercharge transformative change for ALS drug discovery

Two years ago, my friend and colleague, Tris, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND). He was 44, and was told that he had three years left to live – five if he was lucky.

The motor neurones that carry the signals from his brain to his muscles were dying without explanation and, within a relatively short space of time, he would not be able to walk, speak, drink, eat, or, eventually, breathe. A devastating diagnosis made worse by discovering that there was not only no cure, but also very few treatments.

There is a 1 in 300 chance that a person will develop MND in their lifetime, and it can affect adults of any age. In the UK, around 5,000 people are living with MND at any one time – around 90% of these cases will have ALS. Although some very limited treatments exist to slow the progression of the disease for a short time, the complexity of the disease means that there are no long-term treatments, and in turn, no cure.

Launch of the Longitude Prize on ALS

Tris is the Managing Director of Challenge Works, part of innovation foundation Nesta. Together, we design and run challenge prizes – global competitions that reward innovators who develop solutions for some of the world’s toughest challenges: from rapid diagnostics to tackle superbugs; to assistive technologies for people living with dementia.

Challenge prizes are powerful tools for incentivising innovators to solve longstanding, complex global problems. They offer financial rewards to whoever can first, or best, solve a problem, supporting multiple diverse ideas to progress through the stages of a competition with seed funding and non-financial support. This approach levels the playing field for innovators, helping the most promising ideas to progress, regardless of whether the innovators behind them are well-known and established, or new and yet to be tested.

When Tris received his diagnosis, he found the void of innovation – and hope – in ALS treatments simply unbelievable. As did I. The lack of current treatments, coupled with our knowledge around innovation and technology, thanks to our line of work, led us to an obvious conclusion: the time was ripe to launch a challenge prize to help tackle ALS.

On 25 June 2025, the Longitude Prize on ALS officially opened for entries. Principally funded by the MND Association, it is incentivising the use of artificial intelligence (AI) based approaches to transform drug discovery for the treatment of ALS, the most common form of MND.