Meet the centre – Torino ALS Center (University of Torino)

The TRICALS consortium currently consists of more than 40 centers across Europe. Despite sharing their membership to TRICALS in common, all TRICALS centers are unique in their trials, research and expertise. Therefore, in this series ‘meet the centre’, one of our many TRICALS centres is put in the spotlight. 

The Torino ALS Center (CRESLA: Centro Regionale Esperto SLA di Torino), affiliated with the University of Torino is the first TRICALS centre who will be highlighted in this series. The Torino ALS Center stands as one of the largest Italian ALS centres. Adriano Chiò, neurologist, and director of the centre: “We see 250 new ALS patients, and a total of 500 patients every year.”

Adriano Chiò: “Our global mission as a clinical centre is to provide care for ALS patients and their family.” He emphasizes the centre’s dual role, as both a clinical and research facility. “It is very important for us to not only work for the patients, but also work with them. You cannot do good research if you do not have good care.” 

The Torino ALS Center was formally founded in 1995. Chiò: “Before that time, we already worked on ALS. Becoming an official ALS Centre was a recognition of our work.” With the designation of the Torino ALS Center, they became the second ALS research centre in Italy, after Veruno. 

Expertises 

Besides several clinical studies which currently take place in the Torino Center, their main area of expertise lays in epidemiology. “We have been collecting descriptive data from people with ALS for the past 30 years. In total we have 4000 patients in our register. These huge numbers allow us to do analyses. For example, to see whether we can find environmental causes of the disease. We also do research towards the phenotypical variance of the disease. We want to know whether we can explain these differences through the interaction between genes, the environment, and other factors.”

Their research focuses on translational efforts. “We want to move the research into the clinic. We try to listen to specific aspects of the disease our patients mention and translate those bits of information and questions into research. For example, we started doing more research on non-motor symptoms, and pain.” These studies are targeted towards improving quality of life, another huge focus of the research done by the Torino ALS Center.

Accomplishments 

“Among our biggest accomplishments are some of our research outputs. We wrote several important papers about the phenotypical classification of ALS patients. We hope these open up the way to find more patient-specific treatments, as they allow us to subdivide people with ALS in groups based on their symptoms.” 

The centres involvement with TRICALS already dates back to its foundation in 2019. Chiò: “TRICALS was founded based on high trust between research centres. By working together, we put in collaborative effort to find a cure for ALS.” 

Future 

Looking ahead, the centre maintains a strong commitment to clinical trials. “We are always looking for better trials to present to our patients.” But, the centre also focuses on exploring new approaches to dissect the complexities of ALS. “We are currently still not clearly understanding the mechanisms behind the disease. ALS is a heterogeneous disease. Only by acknowledging this, we can find precision medicine. In the end, all we want to achieve is to find a cure for our patients.”