Reading Time: 2 minutes Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has enabled researchers to create and study living human motor neurones in the lab, derived originally from patient skin cells. This project (our reference 80-970-797) is a collaboration between the labs of Professors Chris Shaw and Jack Price at King’s College in London and Siddharthan Chandran in Edinburgh. It…
Reading Time: 2 minutes In a previous research project funded by the MND Association, Prof Kevin Talbot and colleagues from the University of Oxford developed a new TDP-43 mouse model of MND. Compared to other mouse models of MND, this one accurately reflects the symptoms of the disease and levels of the TDP-43 protein as seen in humans. This…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Background to C9orf72 toxicity We know that damage to C9orf72 (both the gene and the protein it makes) is a crucial step in why some people get MND and why some people get frontotemporal dementia. There are three possible reasons why C9orf72 is toxic. 1) the way the gene is damaged alters how it normally…
Reading Time: 2 minutes A team at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience are creating a zebrafish model to study the C9orf72 gene mutation in MND, and work out its role in the brain and spinal cord (our reference 864-792). Zebrafish are a good way of modelling what happens in human MND. We know that many of the genes…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Dr Frank Hirth is one of the world’s leading fruit fly MND researchers. Based at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, he has been working on an Association-funded project developing a C9orf72 fruit fly model of MND. Here we mark the end of this project, and report on what the…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Researchers identify that loss of nerve signalling may be an early sign of MND Published in Nature Communications on 12 January 2015, Association-funded PhD student Anna-Claire Devlin, based at the University of St Andrews, has identified that loss of nerve signalling may be an early sign of MND. Under the leadership of Dr Gareth Miles and…
Reading Time: 3 minutes The opening presentation of this morning’s session of the International Symposium on ALS/MND set the tone for the rest of the day – almost literally, it was as if there was a neon light outside the lecture theatre saying ‘exciting science being presented here’. Stem cells to study electrical activity of neurones
Reading Time: 3 minutes On 4 November, we welcomed two of our funded researchers to our offices in Northampton. Ruxandra Mutihac and Matt Gabel gave us a ‘taste’ of what’s to come for this year’s 25th International Symposium on ALS/MND, by speaking to us about their research. The symposium is the World’s largest MND-specific research conference and is now only two weeks away!
Reading Time: 3 minutes This autumn sees an exciting new development in the MND Association’s DNA Bank. Researchers can now use the samples within it to understand why motor neurones die as well as what the triggers are for MND. How the DNA Bank began Beginning in 2003 and running until 2012, approximately 1,500 people with MND, 1,000 healthy…
Reading Time: 3 minutes The ALS #icebucketchallenge, which started in America, has now well and truly hit the UK! The social media craze has seen thousands of people getting involved in raising awareness of ‘ALS’( the most common form of MND), and funds for the Association, by placing a bucket of ice-cold water over their heads. But what happens…
