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Sai Zhang Named 2025 Target ALS Drug Discovery Consortia Awardee

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Sai Zhang, PhD, has been named a 2025 awardee of Target ALS's Drug Discovery Consortia program, a strategic initiative to advance novel therapeutic targets for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis toward clinical testing.

Zhang serves as co-lead investigator on a multi-institutional consortium developing antisense oligonucleotide therapy to safely target CCDC146, a protein that plays a critical role in protecting nerve cells affected by ALS. The team includes researchers from University of Sheffield, SynOligo, University of Southern California, and Genentech.

In our previous work, we used AI to identify CCDC146 as a novel ALS survival modifier and demonstrated that precisely lowering its levels can protect vulnerable motor neurons. Our goal now is to develop a safe, targeted ASO therapy that can advance toward clinical testing and, ultimately, bring new hope to patients.

Sai Zhang
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science

Target ALS announced four consortia as 2025 awardees, each uniting academic scientists and industry partners to accelerate next-generation treatments for ALS, a devastating neurodegenerative disease with limited treatment options.

Learn more about Zhang's research here.

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