Over a hundred people attended this Tuesday, World ALS Day, commemorating the day organized by ALS Multidisciplinary Unit of the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital. Patients, family members and professionals from Vall d'Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus did not want to miss the experience of the artist Benet Rossell, a patient with ALS, and the explanations given by the members of the unit and the research group on the current status of this rare disease.The event was opened by the managing director of the Catalan Institute of Health (ICS), Dr. Candela Calle, who stressed that "the commitment of our professionals, from a multidisciplinary approach, is responding to an illness that still has many pending issues." Among these aspects, for example, is getting an effective treatment, discover the causes of the disease and what are the molecular mechanisms involved. In this sense, the director of VHIR, Dr. Joan Comella, said that "we will only be able to cure, or make chronicle, such dramatic diseases as ALS, thanks to research." The opening ceremony was also attended by the manager of the Hospital, Dr. Vicente Martínez Ibáñez, and Head of the Neurology Service, Dr. Josep álvarez Sabín.ALS is caused by a degeneration of neurons in the brain and spinal cord responsible for controlling muscle strength. Consequently, patients have a rapidly progressive paralysis that affects the ability to speak, swallow and breathe. Although there are exceptional cases, such as physicist Stephen Hawking and some forms of family ALS, most people with ALS live just five years after experiencing the first signs of the disease.For now, there has been not found any drug that stops the disease, but scientists are hopeful with the new clinical trials being carried out. Dr. Jose Gamez, coordinator of the ALS unit of the Hospital and research group of Peripheral Nervous System Diseases, said at the conference that "in the last five years, we have carried out three clinical trials on this disease, something unthinkable a few years ago. " Dr. Gamez reviewed the history of the disease and acquaintances who have suffered or suffer from it, and what work they do from Vall d'Hebron.Then, Dr. Maria Salvadó, has detailed which are the research lines lead in this field, and Dra. Carmen Sin explained the experience of the ALS Multidisciplinary Unit. Finally, the professor of the University of Barcelona, Lis Costa, reviewed the career of Benet Rossell, with a selection of his films.