I am seeking financial support from people and philanthropic funders to move a focused ALS question into a real experiment: can the way a motor neuron recovers after brief stress predict its response to a later challenge? ONQIVA would test that prediction against a simpler snapshot measure and report the result even if the proposed signal fails.
My work has moved through papers, laboratory research, hand-worked mathematics, and public-data analysis. Each part demonstrates a skill needed for the next study; none is presented as an ALS result.
I was first author of a vitamin D and cancer review and coauthored a paper on vitamin-D-related mechanisms in osteosarcoma. These publications show the research path that preceded ONQIVA.
First-author paper ↗Coauthored paper ↗At the University of Miami, I worked hands-on with proteins, data, and scientific writing. Earlier incubator-based culture work helped me think about cell stress. Its original assay records are being reconstructed, so no cell-line result from that work is claimed here.
See the research recordI worked through the modeling mathematics by hand, prepared public NHANES data, and rebuilt an exploratory survival analysis in Python. Its 515-person cohort, 35 observed deaths, code, and limitations are available for review.
Inspect the methodsInspect the research code ↗Published work in C9orf72 ALS motor neurons has already shown disrupted TDP-43 recovery after repeated mild injury. That observation belongs to the researchers who reported it. ONQIVA's proposed contribution is narrower and testable: define a recovery measure in advance, then ask whether it predicts the response of independent cultures to a second challenge better than a single baseline image does.
A positive result would justify further validation across lines and stressors. A null result would tell us to stop treating that recovery measure as a promising marker. Neither outcome would establish a patient test or treatment.
See the pilot work and next questionRead the motivating study ↗The first funded step is assay feasibility with a qualified research team. Human ALS cell work follows only if the readout is reproducible and the protocol is ready.
Establish a nonlethal stress-and-recovery imaging protocol in a motor-neuron-like culture. Set cell-health and imaging quality criteria before measuring a disease comparison.
Deliverable: a reproducible protocol and feasibility report.Compare C9orf72 iPSC-derived motor neurons and matched isogenic controls across independent differentiations. Measure TDP-43 localization through recovery with blinded image analysis.
Deliverable: recovery curves with uncertainty by line and batch.Lock the recovery measure, hold out entire cultures, and compare its forecast of later TDP-43 localization and cell health with a simpler snapshot-based forecast.
Deliverable: an independent comparison, including null findings.Financial support would pay for qualified research time, cell models and reagents, imaging, independent quantitative review, and clear reporting of the results. I will share an itemized budget, schedule, and research execution plan with interested supporters before any project-specific commitment.
Help finance the first assay feasibility step and receive clear progress and results.
Underwrite a defined research milestone or the full staged study with an agreed budget.
Supporters can inspect the protocol, the spending plan, and a results report that includes null findings.
If you want to support this study financially, I would welcome a conversation about sponsorship, a grant, or support for a specific milestone. The one-page brief is ready to share; a line-item budget and execution plan would follow before a funding commitment.
Discuss financial supportDownload the one-page research brief (PDF)