Elijah Stommel worked with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients as a clinical neurologist and clinical researcher for the past 30 years, and sees approximately 50 new ALS patients per year. The majority of these patients have no known cause for their terminal diagnosis, which has instilled a great urgency in Dr. Stommel to help better understand the disease. In addition to basic research and epidemiological research in ALS, he has run several investigator initiated clinical trials for ALS here at Dartmouth. Dartmouth has a very busy ALS multidisciplinary clinic, which he helps direct. Dr. Stommel’s group has a biorepository for their ALS patients, which allows them to collect specimens for toxin analysis and genetic data with the intent of evaluating gene/environmental interactions, a long term goal. They have concentrated their work on ALS risk factors to the states of OH, VT, NH and FL as well as nationwide analyses of risk factors using geospatial mapping of all potential toxins/toxicants and the Symphony Integrated Dataverse® (IDV®) database (cohort with ~26,000 ALS cases) at the zip3 level. Together, their epidemiological research has helped establish risk factors for ALS. They have been particularly interested in cyanobacterial toxins and toxic metals. They have spent the last 13 years or more investigating environmental risk factors for ALS.

Robert McLellan, MD, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Community and Family Medicine, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, will introduce Dr Stommel and moderate the Q & A.

This event is co-sponsored by The ALS Association, New England, NH Public Health Association and NH Medical Society.