Reading Time: 2 minutes Huge congratulations to Professor Ammar Al-Chalabi for winning the prestigious Sheila Essey Award at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) research conference taking place in Vancouver, Canada. Professor Al-Chalabi is an MND Association funded researcher and Professor of Neurology and Complex Disease Genetics at King’s College London. He is also the Director of our MND Care and Research…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Continuing the ‘gene hunting theme’ on from our last blog post on Project MinE, a recently published study has shed more light on the C9orf72 gene mutation. The C9orf72 gene mutation is the most common cause of the rare inherited form of MND (about 40% of all people with inherited MND have this mutation). Some…
Reading Time: 4 minutes The recent announcement about the use of stem cells to treat a form of multiple sclerosis (MS), together with early results from the BrainStorm stem cell amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) clinical trial in Israel have raised the profile of stem cells as a possible treatment for motor neurone disease. Stem cells are unspecialised cells in…
Reading Time: 5 minutes Clinical trials determine if potential treatments are safe and aim to prove beyond reasonable doubt whether a drug is beneficial. They are therefore the gold standard of treatment research. More information on the different types of clinical trial can be found on our website and in our information sheet on the topic. This year the…
Reading Time: 5 minutes Different ways to support breathing were the main focus of the second clinical session on day two of the Symposium. Researchers from two MND Association funded studies presented their work looking at diaphragm pacing and also the withdrawal of ventilation support. Diaphragm pacing The NeuRx diaphragm pacing system (DPS) is a device developed to aid…
Reading Time: 4 minutes A huge ‘atlas’ mapping the locations of motor neurone disease (MND) causing mutations within the genetic code has been collated. This has followed years of genetic analysis and sequencing of the DNA of people with MND, and their family members. The people who have given their time and DNA have played a hugely important part…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Could there be a small number of people for whom there is a pause or a reversal in their disease progression? A talk at the Symposium on Friday afternoon from Dr Rick Bedlack (Duke University) looked into this very topic. There have been few studies looking into the changing nature of motor neurone disease (MND) progression,…
Reading Time: 3 minutes While muscle cramps are a very common symptom of motor neurone disease (MND) there is currently few effective ways of management and treatment. Even though muscle cramps are frequently reported, not a lot is known about this symptom, as research has been limited. You could say they were the Cinderella of MND symptoms – lacking…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Update (February 2017): All sites are now closed and not recruiting for participants. If you would like to be added to a waiting list for the Sheffield Support Snood, please contact Lise Sproson. We are funding, together with the NIHR i4i (National Institute for Heath Research invention for innovation) programme, a research team in Sheffield who have developed a new type…
Reading Time: 3 minutes The last of our FTD awareness week blog posts is focussing on a healthcare project looking into FTD (frontotemporal dementia) and FTD-MND (FTD when combined with MND). The project began last year and is being part-funded by us. Professor Julie Snowden and PhD student Jennie Adams at the Cerebral Function Unit in Salford (University of Manchester)…
