STRENGTHENING the global effort to CURE neuromuscular disease

Muhannad Seyam, MD, has been named the 2025 recipient of the American Neuromuscular Foundation’s Golseth Young Investigator Award for his innovative research on predicting survival in patients with ALS. ALS is a progressive and ultimately fatal disorder of the nervous system that weakens muscles and affects breathing. While patients typically live 2–5 years after diagnosis, individual outcomes can vary widely. Dr. Seyam’s research tackles this challenge by introducing a novel approach: using early changes in respiratory function to better understand and predict how ALS progresses in individual patients.

“Because breathing difficulties are the main cause of death in ALS, we believe that closely tracking how a patient’s breathing ability changes over time could be a much better way to understand their disease progression and predict how long they will live,” he says. His study shows that patients can be grouped into four distinct “respiratory phenotypes” based on breathing measurements taken at diagnosis and again 3 months later. These phenotypes correspond to dramatically different survival times, ranging from 12 to 41 months, and offer new opportunities for personalized care and improved clinical trial design.

Dr. Seyam hopes this work will lead to earlier interventions, more accurate prognoses, and fresh insights into ALS biology. He says receiving the Golseth Young Investigator Award from the ANF is a great honor and encourages his team to keep going. “It means a lot that leading experts in the field recognize our research and its potential, which also pushes us to continue our work and build upon our findings.” Dr. Seyam also credits his family and mentors for the support that helped make the award possible and looks forward to collaborating with other researchers during the annual meeting.

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