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One week on – Reflections on my first experience of the International Symposium on ALS/MND

Reading Time: 2 minutes Our recent blog articles describe lots of fascinating science and the progress in the care and treatment of MND/ALS that was presented at the symposium.  Personally, another really positive aspect was the opportunity to meet some of the researchers face-to-face. This included several senior scientists and clinicians whose work we support, some of whom gave lectures…

Classifying MND

Reading Time: < 1 minute As the symposium draws to a close, Prof Nigel Leigh gives the final scheduled talk. Prof Leigh is an eminent researcher and clinician and is arguably one of the forefathers of MND research and care – especially in the UK. Throughout his career he has made many important discoveries, founded the first UK MND care centre…

The closing session: what’s happening in Chromosome 9

Reading Time: 2 minutes  After three days of deep discussion and debate among researchers clinicians and health and social care professionals, the final talks of the symposium begin. The room fills with over 800 people for the last time. The closing session begins with ‘late breaking news’. This is an exciting opportunity for very new and exciting results to…

Clinical trials – design and results

Reading Time: 2 minutes This year, two sessions are related to clinical trials. The first, concerns the planning and design of clinical trials. The second is the results of recent trials. But why should we talk about the planning of trials? Planning is a vital step if we are to find a new treatment for MND. By taking the…

Inspired by viruses

Reading Time: < 1 minute I attended a fantastic talk this morning in the session on ‘Translational Strategies’. This session is all about moving laboratory ideas for new treatments for MND into the clinic to test them in clinical trials. The first talk was given by Battaglia, based at the University of Sheffield. In this presentation, he described a multidisciplinary…

Studying the risk of developing MND

Reading Time: 2 minutes A very natural response to receiving a diagnosis of MND is to ask ‘Why me?’. Many people with the disease question whether their MND could have been caused by something in their environment, their occupation or a lifestyle factor such as smoking, diet or exercise. The study of environmental and lifestyle factors that may predispose people…