Background
Scott became active with ALSTDI when his mother Vanna was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 2001.
Scott became active with ALSTDI when his mother Vanna was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 2001.
University of California, Berkeley.
Scott himself was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 2008 at the age of 38. Four more of Vanna"s seven siblings succumbed to the familial form of the disease by 2007, and eventually Sean Scott too died of complications from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 2009. Beginning as a volunteer, Scott assumed the management and direction of the research and development program
He quickly became a leader, teaching himself neurobiology and reading the anthology of publications on potential therapeutics.
Under his leadership, the research organization pioneered new pharmacological, surgical, study design and statistical techniques for study of the G93A-SOD1 mouse model of the disease. In 2008, Scott was lead author of a landmark publication in The Journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis that described guidelines for experimental design of studies evaluating therapeutics in the mouse model.
The work identified crucial errors present in many existing preclinical Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis studies. Scott’s effort to establish standard model guidelines for preclinical development in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis was featured in Nature in August 2008.
Scott also developed an information management system used by researchers allowing for greater collaboration between research groups and the streamlining of experiments and processes.
He focused on building the system and infrastructure needed to execute the largest Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis assault possible. With a system in place and working, Scott focused on ensuring scientists in the lab had the resources required to act on the best ideas quickly, and sought out the funding needed to speed up the process. In 2006, Scott’s effort to fund the ongoing research led him to Augie Nieto and Sharon Hesterlee.
The ambitious $36 million partnership brokered between ALSTDI, Augie’s Quest and the Muscular Dystrophy Association, a partnership that survives Scott, allowed for major expansion of the institute’s efforts to include the identification of genes that behave unusually in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and to determine how those differences affect the disease.