Johns Hopkins University, Cedars-Sinai and Massachusetts General Hospital have raised $20 million to fuel a research initiative to understand the cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The allies plan to use the cash to amass and analyze a trove of clinical, chemical, genetic, protein, historical and biological data from people with ALS. By digging into the data set--which the partners claim will be the largest and most comprehensive of its kind--the collaborators hope to spot what causes ALS and identify targets that could lead to drugs that bring the disease under control. Release