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Giovanni Can Predict ALS Progression

, by Fabio Todesco
Galvani constructed a model that can improve patients' living conditions in a MSc dissertation awarded with a PriSLA prize

If we could predict the development of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in ALS-affected patients, physicians could promptly apply the appropriate clinical and auxiliary tools, thus improving patients' living conditions. That's what Giovanni Galvani, a 2014 graduate of Bocconi's MSc in Finance, achieves in his award-winning dissertation.

In his Application of Neural Network Metamodelling to the Study of ALS Progression Giovanni, now a Fixed Income Investment Graduate at London's Fidelity Worldwide Investment, constructs a computational model that predicts such progression.

"I made use of Neural Networks", he explains, "a simulation tool able to identify relationships between variables, and of a panel data from Studio Filippi, that kept track of the physiological and electromyographical values of over 800 patients affected by moto-neuron diseases for up to 10 years".

By using these data Galvani has been able to fit a Neural Network, capable of surmising the timing of occurrence of the "milestones" of ALS and prepare the patient, both physically and psychologically, for procedures like mechanical ventilation and gastrostomy, that are forced steps in the care of this degenerative disease with no definitive therapy.

Giovanni's dissertation has been ranked first by the jury of PriSLAs, "Premi di Laurea e di Ricerca sulla SLA", the prizes for dissertation about ALS organized by the "Io corro con Giovanni" (I run with Giovanni) association, named after Giovanni Longoni, an ALS patient.

"Even if the database was not intended for the creation of a neural network", says Emanuele Borgonovo, a full professor of the Department of Decision Science and ALS activist, "the results achieved by Giovanni are really outstanding".

The prizes were given out last week during a conference organized at Bocconi by Prof. Borgonovo, attended by the most prestigious Italian ALS scientists and Mario Melazzini (Lombardy Regional Councilor for Economic Activity, Research and Innovation, a doctor himself and ALS affected).

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