Two Indian American early-career researchers, Aishwarya Nambiar and Manisha Kunala are exploring how to better understand ALS and find new ways to diagnose, treat, and ultimately cure the motor neuron disease.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or motor neuron disease, is a progressive, fatal neurodegenerative disease that causes the death of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord.
The two 2026 Live Like Lou Graduate Fellows are pursuing different approaches to one shared goal of advancing innovative work that could shape the future of ALS research.
“When we launched the Live Like Lou Graduate Fellowship in 2025, the goal was simple: put resources behind researchers who are still early enough in their careers to ask the questions nobody else is asking yet,” Live Like Lou Scientific Director, Evangelos Kiskinis, said. “Aishwarya and Manisha are perfect examples of that. Whether it’s finding a way to restore a protein ALS takes away or catching signs of the disease before symptoms even begin, their work is exactly the kind of fresh thinking ALS research needs.”
READ: Two Indian American scientists receive NIH innovative research awards (October 12, 2026)
At Washington University in St. Louis, Nambiar is looking for a way to restore an important protein that can be depleted in certain forms of ALS.
Nambiar’s project, “Protein-Boosting Antisense Oligonucleotides as a Therapeutic Strategy for TBK1-Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis,” focuses on ALS linked to changes in the TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) gene. When one working copy of the gene is lost or impaired, cells may produce too little of the TBK1 protein, contributing to processes that damage motor neurons.
Nambiar is testing antisense oligonucleotides, or ASOs, short DNA-like molecules designed to influence how specific genes produce proteins. Early research has shown that these ASOs can increase TBK1 protein levels in cells from people living with ALS.
Nambiar will refine the most promising ASOs and test whether they can reverse disease-related changes in cells before evaluating the leading candidate in animal models. If successful, the approach could offer a new way to restore proteins depleted in ALS and potentially other neurodegenerative diseases.
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School graduate researcher Kunala is exploring if ALS could be detected before symptoms ever appeared.
Her project, “Investigating a New Class of Predictive Metabolite Biomarkers in ALS Onset and Progression,” looks at metabolites, small molecules involved in the body’s biological processes, as potential early warning signs of ALS.
Read: Indian American researcher wins UCLA engineering alumni award (October 5, 2026)
In preliminary research using a mouse model of ALS, Kunala and her team identified hundreds of metabolic changes that
occurred before symptoms appeared. Some of these changes helped predict when symptoms would begin and how severe they would become.
Now, she will analyze blood samples from people with both familial and sporadic ALS to determine which biomarkers may be shared across different forms of the disease.
Her research could help identify ALS earlier, predict disease progression, and reveal new mechanisms that could eventually be targeted with treatment.
Although their approaches are different, Nambiar and Kunala share something important: they are asking questions that could lead to new ways of understanding ALS.
The Live Like Lou Graduate Fellowship provides up to $50,000 annually for up to two years to graduate students pursuing research focused on new treatments and a cure for ALS.