This year, we are welcoming our 11th cohort of Non-Clinical Research Fellows to our incredible team of more than 320 scientists involved in research grants funded by the MND Association. Six researchers have been awarded Non-Clinical Fellowships, which are grants designed to nurture the best Post-Doctoral researchers and develop the MND research leaders of the future. Fellowships are awarded at two levels, depending on the experience of the applicant. This year, we are supporting four new Junior Non-Clinical fellowships and two Senior Non-Clinical fellowships, which is the highest number of Fellowships we have ever awarded in one year!
Our Non-Clinical Fellowship programme is designed to support and encourage young investigators to stay in MND research as they become independent researchers. In fact, most of our new Fellows have been previously supported by the MND Association, whether that’s as Junior Fellows now progressing up to Senior Fellows, or as Pre-Fellows and Post-Doctoral researchers stepping into Fellowship roles for the first time. We are proud to be able to support the researchers through the next exciting stage of their careers, as they become increasingly independent leaders in the MND research field. You can read more about our Fellowship programme in our recent blog series, which celebrated the 10-year milestone of the programme.
Read on for an introduction to each of our Fellows and a brief description of their research.
2026 Junior Non-Clinical Research Fellows
Dr Katie Hanna: Investigating the skin as a biomarker for MND
Dr Katie Hanna, based at the University of Aberdeen, has been awarded a Junior Non-Clinical Fellowship this year. Katie recently presented her work on skin-based biomarkers for MND at our 36th International Symposium on ALS/MND, and you can read more about her talk in our Symposium blog. Katie is currently supported by one of our biomedical project grants and will be applying the skills and techniques from this project into her Fellowship grant.
Katie’s research focuses on identifying reliable markers for MND in samples that are easier to collect from people. Interestingly, there is growing evidence to suggest that there are changes in other parts of the body, such as the skin, that occur in MND before the onset of symptoms. Katie is leveraging this to explore whether the skin can be used to detect MND before symptoms develop. The goal of her research is to develop simple, fast, and accurate diagnostic tools that can be used in clinics, without the need for invasive investigations, to detect MND earlier. This could help to speed up the diagnostic process and allow people earlier access to care and potential treatments for MND, which could help to improve people’s outcomes.
Dr Holly Spence: Improving MND diagnosis and classification with iron levels
Also based at the University of Aberdeen is another of our new Junior Non-Clinical Fellows, Dr Holly Spence. Similarly to Katie, Holly’s research is focussed towards earlier and more targeted detection of MND. Holly’s research background focuses on understanding how iron levels in the body are changed in MND and how this can be used as a marker for oxidative MND, which is a type of MND seen in around 60% of people with the disease. In 2024, Holly presented an introduction to her work at our 35th International Symposium, which you can read more about in our Symposium recap.
Holly’s Fellowship will build upon her previous research and further investigates how ferritin, which is a specific form of iron stored in the body, can be measured by MRI and used to identify and group different types of MND. She will explore how this biomarker can be used alongside protein and blood-based markers of oxidative MND, with the aim of improving the diagnosis of this type of MND. This could help to enable more personalised therapeutic approaches to improve clinical outcomes with MND treatments.
Dr Heather Marriott: Creating a tool for classifying MND based on biological fingerprints
Dr Heather Marriott, a researcher previously based at King’s College London, has recently completed an 18-month ‘Pre-Fellowship’ funded by the MND Association and co-ordinated by MND Scotland, which you can read about here. This programme, designed to bridge the gap between a PhD and Fellowship, has provided a stepping stone to Heather now being awarded a Junior Non-Clinical Fellowship, which will be caried out at the University of Sheffield.
In the Pre-Fellowship, Heather identified different subtypes of MND based on trends in gene activity, which means looking at which genes were turned on and off in different people with MND. Now, Heather will build upon this research by developing a tool that combines multiple types of biological data into a scoring system that can be used to better classify, understand and ultimately treat different types of MND. It is hoped that the tool will be able to use lots of different types of data collected from people with MND, and work even if some biological data is missing, which will make it more useable in real-world clinical settings. The overall aim of this project is to match up care with each person’s underlying biology, which could accelerate the use of precision medicine in MND.
Dr Björn Vahsen: Diving deeper into microglia in MND
Dr Björn Vahsen, based at the University of Oxford, recently completed a 3-year postdoctoral research project funded by the Association. Prior to this, during his PhD, Björn attended our very first Early Career Researcher event, MND EnCouRage, which is now a well-established programme entering into its fifth year. Now, Björn has been awarded one of our Junior Non-Clinical Fellowship grants, which will support him to advance to the next stage in his MND research career.
Björn’s research explores the role of microglia, which are the immune cells of our brains and spinal cords, in MND. In his Post-Doctoral work, Björn contributed to our understanding of how microglia may play a key role in the development of MND. Now, his research is advancing to explore whether a specific immune process in microglia, called the complement system, is responsible for damaging motor neurons in C9orf72-MND, which is the most common genetic form of MND. He will explore whether blocking this process is able to protect motor neurons, which may uncover new ways to slow disease progression in MND.
2026 Senior Non-Clinical Research Fellows
Dr Hamish Crerar: RNA binding proteins and their contribution to MND
Another attendee at our first ever MND Encourage event in 2022 was Dr Hamish Crerar, who is currently supported by the Association as a Junior Non-Clinical Research Fellow at King’s College London. Hamish has now been awarded funding as a Senior Non-Clinical Research Fellow, which will allow him to continue his work researching MND. Read more about his Junior Fellowship here.
Hamish’s research specialises in RNA, which is a messenger that carries instructions to make DNA into proteins (find out more in our Back to Basics blog). The production of RNA is a very tightly controlled process that is regulated by lots of different proteins, called RNA-binding proteins. In the Senior Fellowship, Hamish will explore how the loss of RNA binding proteins in MND disrupts the delicate balance of RNA processing in motor neurons. This will help to understand how impaired RNA regulation contributes to MND and may identify new targets that could be used to develop new therapies for MND.
Dr Ross Bryne: Understanding MND through a genetic lens
Dr Ross Bryne is nearing the end of his Junior Non-Clinical Fellowship, based at Trinity College Dublin, which you can read more about here. As his Junior Fellowship nears its completion, Ross will now continue his work as a Senior Non-Clinical Fellow. Ross works closely with Dr Russell McLaughlin, who was one of our first cohort of Non-Clinical Fellows and is now an active leader in MND research. Read more about the research duo in our recent blog.
The Senior Non-Clinical Fellowship funding will allow Ross to continue to explore differences in people with MND through the lens of each person’s genetic makeup. Specifically, in this project, Ross will investigate different genetic factors that influence the speed of disease progression. To do this, he will analyse lots of data collected from people with MND to identify genes that are changed that are linked to the speed of disease progression. This fellowship will also support his ongoing investigations into the genetic changes that might underpin cognitive and behavioural changes in MND, as well as sex-differences in genetic risk for the disease. This work will help us to further understand MND at the intersection of genetic and clinical research.
