March 10, 2008 

The ALS Association’s 32nd Certified Center
Is Participating in TREAT ALS Initiative

The State University of New York Upstate Medical University (SUNY) ALS Clinic has become the 32nd Certified Center of Excellence^SM of The ALS Association.

The University Healthcare Center is an outpatient facility.

Located in Syracuse, N.Y., the center was founded in 1996 by its medical director, Dr. Jeremy M. Shefner. Shefner has been an active clinical investigator who has designed and implemented clinical trials in ALS since 1992. His interests also include neurophysiological assessment of motor unit loss in both patients and animal models of ALS.

“The certification of this clinic would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of Dr. Shefner and his wonderful team,” said Sharon Matland, the vice president of patient services for The Association. “They are true professionals in every sense of the word, a first-class team that truly cares about helping people living with ALS and their families.” 

(L-R) Megan Grosso, PA, RPT, Jeremy Shefner, MD, Ph.D., clinic director Nicky Bhatia, MD, clinical fellow Mary Lou Watson, clinic coordinator Kelly Steenburgh, resource coordinator Chris Bateson, RPT Nancy Calhoun and MSW Sue Carnivale, speech and language therapist, are members of the ALS clinic’s multidisciplinary team.

In fact, The Association, through its TREAT ALS (Translational Research Advancing Therapy for ALS) initiative, has put in place a partnership with the North East ALS Consortium, which Dr. Shefner co-founded in 1995, to provide a network of clinical investigators that will be ready to test promising compounds in people with ALS, and provide opportunities for training of newer investigators to participate in clinical trials for ALS.

“My overall goal is to see ALS care improved by the use of new and more efficient therapies,” said Shefner, who completed a fellowship in clinical neurophysiology and neuromuscular disease at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., where he directed the ALS clinic and participated in multiple industry sponsored ALS clinical trials. “Lacking that development, the best way we can take care of people with ALS is to use the multiple specialists that an ALS Association Certified Center can offer.”

 “It is very gratifying to see a clinic develop so that we can provide high quality comprehensive care to patients with ALS. Over the last five years, we have steadily increased the number of patients that we serve, and hope that certification by ALSA will allow us to continue to provide a high level of care to patients in the central New York area,” Shefner said.

Dr. Jeremy M. Shefner

“The people at the national office of The Association and local collaborators have been committed, friendly and have been quite enjoyable to work with,” he said.

Shefner also has held leadership positions in many NIH and industry-supported clinical trials. In addition, he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and has held positions as associate editor of Muscle and Nerve, neuromuscular section editor of Up to Date, and serves on the editorial board of Clinical Neurophysiology and the ALS Journal. He is also chair of the ALS Research Group.

The mission of The Association’s Center Program is to define, establish and support a national standard of care in the management of ALS. The objective of the program is to encourage and provide that state-of-the-art care. More than one-third of The ALS Association’s Centers of Excellence have been certified in the last two and one-half years.