MOFF Philanthropic Investment Portfolio

Request for Proposals: Coming December 2025

Initial Donation to the Forbes Norris MDA/ALS Research and Treatment Center

The first $100,000.00 the Martha Olson-Fernandez Foundation raised was donated to The Forbes Norris MDA/ALS Center in San Francisco on September 2, 2014 in fulfillment of Martha’s wish to fund research ALS until a cure is found. Martha participated in clinical trials for NP001 at the center from 2011-2012. The Forbes Norris Center is an example of an interdisciplinary ALS center which is key to ALS patient comfort. There are now multiple interdisciplinary centers in CA that help patients get all the information and medical attention they need in one location.

(Pictured above from left to right: Dallas Forshew, Dr. Katz, Bob Osborn, Mrs. Dee Norris Dr. Miller)

$10,000 ALS RESEARCH GRANT SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY

What is the ALS Research Grant Sponsorship?

The $10,000.00 ALS Research Grant Sponsorship is a unique opportunity for an individual to make a direct impact on early stage research projects. Research Grant Sponsors will have the opportunity to meet ALS researchers and, if possible, tour the lab their grant is dedicated to. Please check out MOFF’s new request for proposals (RFP) section (COMING SOON) to learn about our ALS research project selection process.

Year	Lab Details	ALS Research Project	ALS Research Grant Sponsor
2019	USC Ichida Lab	PIKFYVE kinase inhibitor antisense oligonucleotide ALS therapy	Larry Fernandez Family
2020	Dr. Bedlack’s ALS Lab at Duke University	Study of ALS Reversals Protocol #3-The Microbiome	Larry and Cheri Fernandez

Researcher Commentary

Dr. Justin Ichida at the USC Lab for Stem Cell Research (2019):

“Over the past 10 years, researchers have learned that ALS has many different genetic causes. Therefore, one reason that therapeutic development for ALS has been difficult is because many therapeutics may work well for a small number of patients, but not for most patients. It has been difficult to identify therapeutics that work for most patients because the genetic causes for most cases are not known. To enable the discovery of therapeutics that can slow or reverse neurodegeneration in most ALS patients, we developed a new technology that allows the production of motor nerve cells from blood. In this approach, the genetics of each ALS patient is maintained in the motor nerve cells derived from him/her. Using these cells in a dish, we tested all approved FDA drugs and thousands of other drug-like chemicals to find those that show the greatest ability to prevent the degeneration of motor nerve cells from a diverse collection of ALS patients. We identified rare drug-like chemicals that showed much better efficacy than riluzole or Radicava, and slow degeneration of most patients’ motor nerve cells. We are currently developing one of the drug-like chemicals for clinical testing, and any donations from the Martha Olson-Fernandez Foundations will help to accelerate these efforts.”

Collaborative Research Efforts With ALS TDI

The Martha Olson-Fernandez Foundation is energized by the novel and collaborative research that is ongoing at ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI) and has funded a number of their projects since 2017.

ALS TDI is driven by a single mission — to discover and develop treatments for ALS. It is the world’s first and largest nonprofit biotech focused 100 percent on ALS research. Led by people with ALS and drug development experts, it is funded by a global network of supporters unified to ending ALS.

MOFF’s passion for investing in ALS research emerged in 2016 from the need to support researchers through the “valley of death” phase of development as they ask key research questions and conduct essential studies to learn more about their potential therapy.

Since 2016, MOFF has cultivated a diverse portfolio of projects spanning basic research, bio banking, biomarker projects, animal model development, EAP access, clinical trial design projects. Some of the preclinical projects which received MOFF funding have been brought to the clinical and are being tested as potential therapies for people living with ALS. This is very encouraging!

2025 Market Update: There is hope in finding a cure for ALS, and it is not false hope. Venture capital firms and and large pharma entities are interested in funding ALS research and over 50 potential therapies across all stages of development are being developed in company pipelines.

	Research Grants
2016	$20,000 C9orF72 research (ALS TDI)
2017	$25,000 AT-1501 development (ALS TDI)
2018	$25,000 Biomarker database collection (CSF and tissue sample library) (ALS TDI)
2019	$25,000 ALS animal model construction (ALS TDI)
2020	$10,000 Profilin 1 mouse model creation (ALSTDI). $10,000 PIKFYVE kinase inhibitor therapy development (USC Ichida Lab)
2021	$10,000 Duke Microbiome Project $10,000 ALS Therapy Development Institute
2022	$30,000 MGH Expanded Access Protocol Program $10,000: TDP-43 Imaging at LLNL (ALS CURE Project)
2024	$10,000: Cont’d TDP43 research at ALS Cure $15,000: Intranasal Anti-CD3 antibody at MGH