Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease which causes progressing paralysis leading to death from respiratory failure within 2-5 years in most cases. Currently approved therapies are only modestly effective. A number of factors limit the development of effective treatments among which a limited understanding of the onset mechanisms and its biological heterogeneity greatly affects our capacity to identify optimal targets for therapy. Using Bioinformatics, Machine Learning and large multi-omics and clinical datasets of over 15,000 ALS patients and controls from international consortia such as Project MinE, AnswerALS and TargetALS, we have identified 5 subtypes of ALS which present distinct disrupted biological processes, clinical phenotypes and cell type involvement. Moreover, using whole-genome sequencing we discovered genetic signatures of these groups (sets of genetic variants) that further support their underlying biological basis and have potential as biomarkers. These ALS subtypes could be the basis for a reclassification of ALS patients that would favour the design of new targeted research and a more personalized approach to health care and therapy development.

After a career in Biophysics, Dr. Alfredo Iacoangeli accepted his PhD "cum laude" in Life Sciences in January 2016 from "Sapienza" University of Rome where he worked on structural bioinformatics with a particular focus on protein structure prediction and protein-peptide interaction. He joined King’s College London in March 2016 and he is Principal Investigator of a team of computational scientists and Bioinformatics teaching lead at the Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics. The focus of his lab is twofold: i) the development and use of bioinformatics, machine learning and statistical methods to analyze large multi-omics and clinical datasets, to study the biological basis of neurodegenerative diseases; ii) the development of bioinformatics solutions for precision medicine and to allow scientists without extensive informatics expertise to take advantage of publicly available large biodata. As a result of the impact and quality of his research, he was awarded the European Network to Cure ALS (ENCALS) Young Investigator Award 2021. Dr. Iacoangeli is author of over 50 scientific articles in the field of Structural and Genomic Bioinformatics and MND/ALS genetics.