On Tuesday, we posted news of the two MND Awareness engagement events taking place in Manchester during the Manchester Science Festival (on 25 and 31 October). Both activities have been developed to try and translate to a wide audience the cycle scientific investigation goes through. Here in a second guest blog for us Dr Emma Hodson-Tole explains more.
The search for providing effective treatments and provision of support for MND is a challenge a wide network of scientists from many different disciplines are working to solve. This requires development of new technologies and new approaches to enable study of different aspects of the neuromuscular system. These help provide a new understanding of how the neuromuscular system works, and changes which occur due to diseases such as MND.
To do this funding is required to provide laboratory space, cover costs of equipment and materials and enable researchers to have time to focus on their chosen programme of work. Funding can come from many sources, for example from government research agencies such as the Medical Research Council (MRC) or medical research charities. For the MND Association the money spent on research is raised by donations. The donations come from members of the general public and the amazing range of fundraising activities they take part in.
It takes dedication for MND research to happen
So what are the motivations for all these activities? Both the research and the fundraising activities require large amounts of dedication, determination and drive. The source of this motivation is likely very different for each person in this network. From the people I have had a chance to meet as part of my work related to MND, it seems that there is often a common theme. That theme is the stories of the people who have been touched by MND, either through being diagnosed themselves or through supporting a family member or friend with the disease. It is these individual stories which bring us full circle, to the challenges which scientists must work towards solving.
Inspiring the next generation of scientists
We hope the engagement activities planned for the science festival will help raise awareness of MND and ongoing research based in Manchester and other parts of the UK, such as the Patani Lab. Spreading awareness within this setting could, we hope, also help inspire the next generation of scientists who are motivated to try and meet the challenges MND currently faces us with.
If you are in the Manchester area please do come by and see us, equally don’t forget to encourage any family or friends in the region to come and find out what it is all about!
You can find out more about the events described here and those of the wider Manchester Science Festival at: http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/
Movement Making: 10.30am – 5pm Sunday 25 October, The Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester, M3 4FP
Action Potential: 11:45am, 2pm and 3pm Saturday 31 October, The John Dalton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, M1 5GD (Being held as part of MMU Science Extravaganza)
Dr. Emma Hodson-Tole is a member of the Cognitive Motor Function research group at Manchester Metropolitan University. The activities described have been developed in collaboration with Dr. Rickie Patani (UCL), Belinda Cupid (MND Association), Devin Louttit and Thomas Valentine (Manchester Metropolitan University), Combination Dance, Dance Consulting and have been supported by The Wellcome Trust, the MND Association and MMUEngage.
Those of you on Twitter can follow activities related to the Manchester Science Festival using #msf15 and those specific to our activities using #mndmove
