John E. Landers, PhD

Assistant Professor of Neurology

John E. Landers, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. His research lab is part of the Cecil B. Day Laboratory for Neuromuscular Research.

About ALS

ALS is an incurable late-onset disease in which the motor neurons deteriorate leading to muscular atrophy. ALS typically develops in the fifth decade of life and is fatal within 3-5 years.

Familial ALS accounts for 10% of all ALS with 20% due to mutations in the SOD1 gene. 90% of ALS cases are sporadic (SALS). Little is known about factors contributing to the development of SALS.

Our laboratory is focused on using high-throughput genomic technologies to identify the genes involved in the development of sporadic and familial ALS. Much of our initial efforts focused on case-control studies. Towards this end, we have analyzed over 100 candidate genes for their association to SALS. More recently, our lab has expanded this approach to a genome-wide level. Through the use of high-density SNP arrays, our lab is analyzing over 300,000 polymorphisms within the human genome for their association to SALS. It is our hope that through the identification of such genes, we may be able to better understand the biological pathways and mechanism of ALS. Such an understanding will aid the advancement of drugs to help control the development and progression of ALS.