Immendorff initiative at the Charité
www.immendorff-initiative.de

Jörg Immendorff is one of the most important present day artists in Germany and works as professor of art at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. Since 1998 he has had a variant of ALS. Since February 2004 there has been a joint initiative by the artist and the ALS outpatient clinic of the Charité to advance research into ALS treatment in Germany. The websites describe the objectives and current activities of the Immendorff initiative, which since January 2006 has enabled a privately financed study of ALS therapy at the Charité.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis link portal
www.als-site.de

Websites of clinics, institutes, associations, companies and individual persons on various aspects of ALS are summarised on this site. This is the biggest collection of links to websites in German on the topic of ALS.

ALS Therapy Development Foundation (ALS TDF)
www.als.net

The ALS TDF is a private institution for the development of ALS therapy that goes back to an initiative of brothers James and Stephen Heywood. One of these brothers suffers from ALS while the healthy brother has set up a donor programme in aid of ALS. The result of this commitment has been the foundation of a research laboratory in Boston, USA, which conducts systematic basic experiments and animal studies to research ALS therapy. The website describes the results of all the animal experiments of numerous drug studies performed using the ALS mouse model (“SOD mouse“).

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Muskelkranke
[German Muscle Disease Society] e.V. (DGM)
www.dgm.org

with headquarters in Freiburg/Br. The DGM provides information about the work of ALS self help, information for patients and relatives on ALS and contact addresses of specialist neurological institutions, providers of aids and various medical institutions.

National Institute of Health (NIH)
www.clinicaltrials.gov

The American national health authority publishes a summary of clinical studies currently underway in the USA, including treatment and investigation studies of ALS. Since September 2005 registration of clinical studies is binding worldwide so that information about current studies of ALS therapy is made available even in the planning phase of clinical trials. The NIH portal is the main site for registration for clinical trials in the indication of ALS.

Motor Neuron Disease Association (MNDA)
www.mndassociation.org