Fernando Vieira is the CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI), a non-profit research institute dedicated to discovering and advancing effective treatments to slow, stop, or reverse amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He charts the strategic vision of the institute with a focus on leveraging key organizational strengths in research and connections directly to the patient community, while identifying opportunities to collaborate with other stakeholders.

As CSO at ALS TDI, he leads a multidisciplinary team of scientists and researchers in their efforts to discover and develop effective treatments and biomarkers for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He has focused on ALS research since 2001. His research findings – spanning basic discovery, preclinical discovery and optimization, clinical development, and translational ALS research – have been widely cited.

Specifically, he has focused on optimizing animal models for ALS preclinical pharmacology and drug screening. He has led or contributed to the identification and preclinical validation of four drugs that have advanced into human clinical assessment and has been awarded multiple patents for those drugs. His teams have contributed important basic research findings to the study of genetic ALS, focusing on SOD1 mutation biology and C9orf72 mutation biology. Recently, he has led biomarker discovery efforts employing digital outcome measures and machine learning to assess ALS symptom severity. Dr. Vieira also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the ALS Investment Fund and was named to the 2024 Class of Henri Termeer Fellows. Dr. Vieira received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a bachelor’s degree in Biological Engineering from the University of Florida.

Dr. Kyle Denton joined the ALS Therapy Development Institute in 2016. He is currently working on establishing high-throughput methods for generating neural subtypes from patient induced pluripotent stem cells to use in phenotype discovery and drug screening studies. Kyle joined the Institute because of his interest in neurodegenerative research and the opportunity to work with the resources that the ALS Research Collaborative provides. He came to the Institute after a postdoctoral position in Dr. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz’s lab at the National Institutes of Health. Kyle received his Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut Health Center in Biomedical Sciences, with a concentration in neuroscience. Prior to that, he received his B.A. and M.A. from Clark University in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2010 and 2011, respectively. In his free time, Kyle enjoys cycling and hiking.

Dr. Theo Hatzipetros joined the ALS Therapy Development Institute in 2011. He is an in vivo pharmacologist who specializes in the field of neurodegeneration. Prior to joining the Institute, Theo worked on drug discovery for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease at FoldRx Pharmaceuticals. At the ALS Therapy Development Institute, Theo's efforts are focused on the development of novel animal models of ALS and in evaluating therapeutic strategies for the treatment of the disease. Theo, originally from Cyprus, received his doctorate in pharmacology from Boston University School of Medicine for his thesis work on the neurotoxic effects of the psychostimulant pharmacological stimulants.

Dr. Alan Gill joined the ALS Therapy Development Institute in 2007. He is an experienced pharmacologist/physiologist with a thorough understanding of practical investigation in complex in vivo animal systems. He came to the Institute after a one-year immersion in Huntington's disease drug discovery as the Director and Head of Pharmacology at EnVivo Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company concentrating on neurodegenerative diseases. Prior to EnVivo he worked for 13 years in Biogen and Biogen Idec's drug discovery research division where he instituted Biogen's Pharmacology Department. These efforts led to drug candidates that were the basis for collaboration with Merck and Co. for their clinical development, and to small molecule and protein potential therapeutics selected for development by Biogen Idec itself. Prior to working for Biogen, Alan worked for 12 years with Johnson & Johnson's worldwide drug discovery research division. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the M.S. Hershey Medical Center of the Pennsylvania State University, and his Master's degree in Physiology and Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of San Francisco.