Reading Time: 2 minutes Government cuts to research will have a knock on effect for the future, while cuts to care have an impact on those currently living with MND. Funding and promoting research to ensure a future rich in clinical, scientific and healthcare discoveries for MND is important to us, but we can’t achieve this on our own. As part…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Zebrafish are increasingly becoming the organism of choice to study both early development and disease. But why are zebrafish important to MND research and can we really learn anything from a fish? Shall I compare thee to a zebrafish? Amazingly, we share many of our genes with our finned-friend the zebrafish which means that we really…
Reading Time: 2 minutes This morning we read with interest an article in the Daily Mail newspaper which links MND to the month that you were born in. According to the article, being born between April and August means you are at a greater risk of developing MND. However, as far as we can tell, there is no scientific evidence…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Results of a recent poll suggest that the UK public is incredibly supportive of healthcare research within the NHS. These results will now be used as evidence that the developing Health and Social Care Bill should include statements about an obligation to fund and promote research within the NHS. The results published today, state that…
Reading Time: 2 minutes We organise the International Symposium on ALS/MND every year, and this year, the symposium will be going ‘down under’ to Sydney Australia on 30 November – 2 December 2011. We opened our online abstract submission system back in February –this is a place where researchers from around the world can compose and submit their work to…
Reading Time: 2 minutes We have been made aware that there’s a new kid on the block in terms of unproven treatments, which is a new route of administration of stem cells at the X-Cell stem cell clinic based in Germany. As a brief background of the story to date, last year, a group of international researchers collectively known…
Reading Time: < 1 minute In the past year, our blog has been viewed nearly 16,000 times. We’ve written 97 articles to take people behind the scenes of MND research, including explaining exciting news stories – like the first results from the BioMOx project (funded by the MND Association) and new genetic causes of MND. We’ve also taken you to conferences…
Reading Time: < 1 minute We’re aware that thing’s may seem quiet in terms of ‘big’ MND research moments… almost too quiet… Well, today, the pharmaceutical companies Biogen Idec and Knopp Biosciences announced that the first person has been recruited into their clinical trial to test the effectiveness and safety of a drug called dexpramipexole. – Please note: UK trial recruitment has not yet…
Reading Time: < 1 minute As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, our current research grants round is our biggest yet with 19 full applications being reviewed by our research advisory panel. But what does that look like? And what do we have to do to prepare these applications for our research advisory panel? To answer these questions (and more), and…
Reading Time: 2 minutes An unproven treatment called ‘Spirulina’, which is a type of blue-green algae, has recently been investigated by ALSUntangled*. They concluded that there is no evidence that Spirulina is effective for treating MND. Their findings also suggest that it could be toxic to people with MND. In their investigative paper, which is free to download and…
