Fernando Vieira

Fernando Vieira is the CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI); a non-profit research institute dedicated to discovering and advancing effective treatments to slow, stop, or reverse amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). At ALS TDI, he leads a multidisciplinary team of scientists and research in their efforts to discover and develop effective treatments and biomarkers for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He has been focused on ALS research since 2001. His research findings – spanning basic discovery, preclinical discovery and optimization, clinical development, and translational ALS research have been widely cited. Specifically, he has focused on optimizing animal models for ALS preclinical pharmacology and drug screening. He has led or contributed to the identification and preclinical validation of four drugs that have been advanced into human clinical assessment and has been awarded multiple patents for those drugs. His teams have contributed important basic research findings to the study of genetic ALS, focusing on SOD1 mutation biology and C9orf72 mutation biology. Recently, he has led biomarker discovery efforts employing digital outcome measures and machine learning to assess ALS symptom severity. Dr. Vieira also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the ALS Investment Fund and was named to the 2024 Class of Henri Termeer Fellows. Dr. Vieira received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a bachelor’s degree in Biological Engineering from the University of Florida.

Keynote Speaker