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Cogane produces encouraging results in MND Association-funded study

Reading Time: 2 minutes Thanks to funding and some strategic ‘match-making’ by the MND Association, a new drug may have taken one step closer to beginning clinical trials in MND after producing promising results in an animal model of the disease. The drug, known as Cogane, was developed by the biotechnology company Phytopharm. It had already demonstrated in laboratory…

Pointing the finger towards the causes of MND

Reading Time: 2 minutes Would it ever cross your mind that the relative lengths of your fingers might be related to the durability of your motor neurones? Probably not – at first glance the link seems extraordinarily tenuous! However, a research group led Prof Ammar Al-Chalabi, who has close connections with the Association, has found that people with MND…

Collaboration between cancer and MND researchers produces exciting results

Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s been a busy couple of weeks for exciting research results! Hot on the heels of the publication of Dr Turner’s imaging study, MND Association-funded researchers who pioneered a state-of the art technique adapted from cancer research have just published results describing some of the earliest events in MND-related degeneration. Prof Giampietro Schiavo and colleagues at…

Information means informed choice

Reading Time: 2 minutes Alternative treatments can be tempting if you have a disease like MND, for which conventional medicine can only offer one moderately effective drug.  Unfortunately this temptation is easily preyed upon by clinics around the world that claim to be able to provide effective treatments or even a cure (at great expense of course), despite having no supporting evidence. We often take enquiries…

Kate – incurable optimist

Reading Time: < 1 minute When I started my job at the Association just four years ago we were funding 19 research projects and studentships. Researchers were using animal models based on the one major disease-causing gene that had been discovered to try and learn more about the mechanisms underlying all types of MND, which I thought was all pretty clever…

The calm before the storm

Reading Time: < 1 minute MND researchers from around the world who are hoping to present their work at this year’s International Symposium on ALS/MND are (we hope!) preparing to submit to us brief summaries of their proposed presentations. These summaries, known as abstracts, have been trickling in since March. Based on the form of earlier years, the trickle will…

Spring conference reflections

Reading Time: < 1 minute This weekend the Association held its first regional Spring Conferences for 2010 and I was lucky enough to attend Saturday’s conference in Newport. I really enjoy spring conferences – it’s great to be able to talk face to face with people affected by MND and the Association’s fantastic volunteers. Quite a few Association Visitors visited our research…