Year: 2023

A graphic showing some of the photos of the ALS/FTD Plenary Speakers

Reading Time: 5 minutes Every year, the team works hard to build on the previous year’s success. This year we are excited to include a series of three ALS-FTD joint sessions, in collaboration with the International Society for Frontotemporal Dementias, in the programme. To give you a teaser of what is to come, we are taking a closer look at the plenary speakers in the ALS-FTD sessions at the Symposium. In this blog, we explore the topics they will be presenting and find out a little more about the speakers.

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A graphic showing some of the photos of ALS/FTD Plenary Speakers

Reading Time: 5 minutes Every year, the team works hard to build on the previous year’s success. This year we are excited to include a series of three ALS-FTD joint sessions, in collaboration with the International Society for Frontotemporal Dementias, in the programme.

Some people with ALS, the most common form of MND, also develop a form of dementia known as frontotemporal dementia (FTD). FTD is a group of disorders where the nerve cells in two sets of lobes (frontal and temporal) in the brain are damaged. In a similar way to how motor neurones break down in MND and cause loss of function in muscles, the damage to the nerve cells in FTD causes the connections between parts of the brain to break down. As more cells become damaged and die this can lead to symptoms such as problems with memory, thinking or language, changes in mood, emotions and behaviour.

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A graphic showing the photos of our Symposium Communications Ambassadors

Reading Time: 7 minutes Each year at the Symposium, there is a huge amount of research presented on a range of topics from across the globe. With the Symposium returning to an in-person event this year, we are keen to increase the number of updates we share for those not able to attend, including people living with and affected by MND.

To help us do this, we have launched a new Symposium Communications Ambassador Programme so we can bring more of the research from the Symposium to non-scientific audiences. This programme was open for applications from early career researchers working in MND, who were interested in helping us shine a light on MND research happening across the world. This year we have 5 early career researchers taking part in the Programme, who will gain experience and new skills in communicating research to different audiences. Before, during and after the Symposium our Ambassador’s will be helping us to share the latest research with the MND community.

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A graphic including photos of some of the plenary speakers

Reading Time: 7 minutes Each year we invite plenary speakers who are experts in their fields to provide an overview on topics across MND research and clinical practice. This year we have 14 plenary speakers talking about ALS/MND who will discuss a wide range of topics from genetics to tissue biomarkers to improving clinical practice. In this second blog we will be taking a closer look at some of our plenary speakers this year and sharing more about the topics they will be discussing.

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A picture of two spiral proteins

Reading Time: 4 minutes My name is Dr Hannah Smith, and I’m a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh. My project is supervised by Professor Tom Gillingwater, and my work is funded by MND Scotland. My current research focuses on comparing healthy motor neurons and those with MND/ALS, specifically focusing on early changes to the cellular machinery and how the motor neurons produce the proteins they need to function. I’ll discuss the specifics of that, and why we are interested in finding out this information, in the next section.

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A robot arm with finger pointed to a brain and a human arm with finger pointed to the same brain

Reading Time: 4 minutes My name is Florence and I’m doing a PhD in artificial intelligence (AI) enabled healthcare at University College London. My research is specifically investigating how AI techniques can be used to improve the prediction of how quickly somebody’s disease will progress in motor neurone disease.

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