"A tracheostomy is a scary endeavor for people living with ALS, because it signifies crossing a new stage in life, a stage that is close to the end," Rodriguez tells me using a communication device. "Before the procedure I still had some independence, and I could still speak somewhat, but now I am permanently connected to a machine that breathes for me." Rodriguez and his wife, Maria Fernandez, who live in Miami, thought they would never hear his voice again. After feeding old recordings of Rodriguez's voice into a tool trained on voices from film, television, radio, and podcasts, the couple were able to generate a voice clone--a way for Jules to communicate in his "old voice." "Hearing my voice again, after I hadn't heard it for some time, lifted my spirits," says Rodriguez, who today communicates by typing sentences using a device that tracks his eye movements, which can then be "spoken" in the cloned voice.

Intel, Dell, and Rolls-Royce have created a digital tool to preserve and clone the voices of people with motor neuron disease (MND), also known as ALS before they lose their ability to speak. The companies worked with the Motor Neurone Disease Association to produce the I Will Always Be Me storybook and machine learning process to generate a voice model of the person with MND who reads it. The I Will Always Be Me story written by Jill Twiss incorporates crucial phrases into its thousand-word length. Once a user reads it aloud, the audio recording is processed and transformed into a voice model capable of synthesizing the reader's voice to say whatever they wish through the kind of accessibility devices made famous by Dr. Stephen Hawking. The idea is to give the 80% of people with MND who lose the ability to speak to still have their own voice.

A machine-learning algorithm has helped scientists find 690 human genes associated with a higher risk of developing motor neuron disease, according to research published in Cell this week. Neuronal cells in the central nervous system and brain break down and die in people with motor neuron disease, like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, named after the baseball player who developed it. They lose control over their bodies, and as the disease progresses patients become completely paralyzed. There is currently no verified cure for ALS. Motor neuron disease typically affects people in old age and its causes are unknown.

Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76, according to his family. Here is a look back on his life as one of the world's foremost theoretical physicists. British physician Stephen Hawking announces winners of the Stephen Hawking medals during an event held in Guia de Isora's Island, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. For decades, legendary scientist Stephen Hawking was confined to a wheelchair by a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, a neurological disease that impacts movement. He communicated via a speech synthesizer.

The Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) and AI start-up BenevolentAI have announced a potentially major breakthrough in the treatment of motor neuron disease, thanks to artificial intelligence. The groundbreaking development for the disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), came about as scientists from SITraN assessed the efficacy of a drug candidate proposed by BenevolentAI's AI technology. The scientists, led by Dr. Richard Mead and Dr. Laura Ferraiuolo, found there are significant and reproducible indications that the drug prevents the death of motor neurones in patient cell models, and delayed the onset of the disease in the gold standard model of ALS. SITraN is now moving to the next phase of its research, advancing the existing study and assessing the suitability and potential for clinical development. It expects to publish an abstract at the Motor Neurone Disease Association 28th International Symposium in Boston in December.