Reading Time: 4 minutes With the huge advances in biology, it can seem that areas such as brain scanning are relatively stagnant, but we are starting to see a growing momentum in the field, allowing researchers to learn more about the ‘real time’ events occurring in individuals with MND. Hand in hand with the improving technology that allows us…
Reading Time: 4 minutes On Thursday morning, Profs Paul Cox and Walter Bradley chaired a session titled ‘Beyond Guam: New Aspects of the BMAA Hypothesis’. This was the latest chapter in a detective story, involving botanists, epidemiologists, clinicians and biochemists that goes back 60 years…. Back in the early 1950s, American doctors started documenting a high incidence of a…
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Opening Session theme on how the disease progresses within the Central Nervous System (CNS) continued with the presentation by Prof Stan Appel from Baylor College of Medicine, Huston on neuroinflammation. Examination of post-mortem brain and spinal cords from people with MND shows clear evidence of inflammation (although Prof Appel was quick to point out…
Reading Time: 9 minutes I’m sure many of you who follow our blog have also been following the discussion on our forum about the Neuraltus trial for a drug called NP001. First of all, thanks to ‘Matt J’ for initially raising this issue on our forum. It highlights the power of the forums in facilitating information spread and getting new news…
Reading Time: < 1 minute Back in March I mentioned that the Association’s peer review practices were being audited by the Association of Medical Research Charities. I’m pleased to say that we’ve been given a clean bill of health and are now the proud owners of a new AMRC Certificate of Good Practice. With increasing numbers of scientists seeking funding…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Form filling is tedious. For those of us of a certain age (I’m not saying any more!) online form filling is even more stressful. So recently, I ‘girded my loins’ and completed the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) 2010-11 Peer Review Audit. AMRC is a body that represents over 125 medical research charities across the UK,…
Reading Time: < 1 minute Back in spring 2009 I took part in an awareness raising event organised by the drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The company was starting to make plans for the first ‘Phase 1’ clinical studies of a new antibody-based compound to treat MND, the delightfully titled ‘GSK1223249’. The Phase 1 study is still ongoing and we will…
Reading Time: 2 minutes It was then back to the science. Prof Frank Soldner (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) provided an overview of a new and exciting way in which MND-causing genes can be introduced into human embryonic stem cells in order to study the disease. Traditional gene transfection techniques are rather uncontrolled, resulting in multiple copies of the gene…
Reading Time: 2 minutes The room was crowded at 8am for the first presentation of day two, from Dr Doug Sipp (RIKEN Institute, Japan) on ‘Unregulated ALS/MND treatments and public education’. Dr Sipp provided an insightful and entertaining overview of the plethora of self-styled stem cell ‘clinics’ and the tactics they employ to attract business. During the talk, the song Snake Oil, by…
Reading Time: 2 minutes One human neural stem cell line that has cleared the US Government’s regulatory hurdles is that developed by the biotechnology company Neuralstem. To date, nine patients have received implants of these cells with few complications reported. Two of the clinicians leading the study at Emory University, neurologist Jonathan Glass and neurosurgeon Nick Boulis, outlined the system that…
