I have great news about the fight against als. Remember the ice bucket challenge. More than 17 million people participating in that chilly challenge to fight the disease. Well now scientists have said they have a major breakthrough thanks in large part to the money that was raised because of it. ABC's David Wright is here with the very latest. Good morning to you, David. Reporter: Good morning, Lara. Not long ago it seems everybody was doing it. Some of my Facebook friends did it twice pouring cold water on themselves to raise awareness for als, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Well, it turns out the ice bucket challenge didn't just raise awareness, it raised a whole lot of money for research. Remember the ice bucket challenge. Last summer's coolest viral fund-raising sensation. Aaagh! Reporter: Well, this morning researchers at Johns Hopkins say those brief moments of pain -- Aaagh. Reporter: -- Resulted in real gains spurring a tangible breakthrough in the fight against als. There's this protein that doesn't seem to be doing its job in als patients and we've been trying to figure out what it's doing for the past decade and now I think we finally figured it out. The best part is, it can be fixed. I see an ice storm in the forecast. Reporter: All those icy cold mome moments raising money to fight als, 115 million for the als association and 77 million went straight into research. Pete fretes were the first to start it. We did get one miracle out of this and that was all the funds and awareness that came through with the ice bucket challenge and we just want one other miracle now which is a cure. A treatment. That's right, the folks at Johns Hopkins say tdp43 not a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease but could possibly lead to a cure so round two of the ice bucket challenge is already starting kicking it off last night Oscar winner Eddie redmayne who played Stephen hawking. There's something -- people take great pleasure in watching that -- Suffering. Yeah. 440 million people have watched the ice bucket challenge online. Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you very much. We have to move on to the