Science on Target: Q2 Global Natural History Study (GNHS) Update
July 8, 2026 Amy Easton
The Global Natural History Study (GNHS)
The Target ALS Global Natural History Study (GNHS) is entering a new phase of discovery. As the only international, longitudinal study generating deeply characterized clinical, genomic, and biofluid data to accelerate ALS biomarker discovery and therapeutic development, the GNHS is now beginning to deliver large scale datasets and resources needed to support new insights into disease characterization and biomarker identification Led by Dr. Bob Bowser of the Barrow Neurological Institute, this study spans 16 sites globally and has enrolled more than 357 participants, including 152 healthy controls. With the control cohort already 75% enrolled, the study has generated over 50,000 longitudinal biofluid samples (blood, urine, and CSF) paired with extensive clinical and digital health metadata. Historically underrepresented populations now comprise 34% of the cohort, making the GNHS one of the most ancestrally diverse ALS research resources available and improving the applicability of future discoveries across diverse populations.
As the study expands Modality AI speech assessments across additional participating sites, it is also delivering the first of many datasets to accelerate discovery research, including TMT-MS and Olink proteomics analyses. The first publication comparing the advantages of each platform for biomarker discovery is available online at MedRxiv. Yasui et al. conducted a cross-sectional analysis identifying a novel subset of CSF and plasma proteins that may serve as candidate biomarkers for further validation.
All longitudinal clinical and metadata generated through the study are integrated and released through the Target ALS Data Engine, and are available to academic and industry investigators, facilitating cross-study analyses to accelerate ALS therapeutic research.
To learn more, follow Laura Dugom, Associate Director of Clinical Research, who will be sharing updates on the GNHS at ALS Nexus and NEALS conferences in August and October.
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