Reading Time: 5 minutes Long before the latest wave of cellular and molecular biology advances started to give us new information on what was going on at the cellular level in MND, some doctors had observed that if the disease started in one particular part of the body, it would be neighbouring parts that became affected next. This suggested…
Reading Time: 8 minutes Following on from our previous catch-up blog on clinical management talks presented at the Symposium, here is a continuation that looks at talks focusing on treatment therapies and causes of MND. RNA Binding & Transport RNA is the lesser-known ‘cousin’ of DNA – it contains copies of genetic instructions sent out from the nucleus –…
Reading Time: 6 minutes From abstracts to posters, pushpins to ribbons, it takes a whole year to get to this day – no, not Christmas, but the 28th International Symposium on ALS/MND. In this and the following ‘catch-up’ blog we will summarise what went on at the Symposium and where you can find out more information. To begin with,…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Looking for a treatment for MND is the ultimate goal of the whole MND community. Unfortunately, as MND is a very complicated disease, it is not as easy as it may sound. Setting aside the sheer cost of running trials, researchers have to look at all the possible causes of MND (the genes, lifestyle and…
Reading Time: 3 minutes At the end of a very busy Day 2 of the Symposium, I sat down with my colleagues for a quick chat. After a while, one of them, who has been with the Association since 1995 told us how someone once asked him: ‘So if you look at the last 20 years, how has the…
Reading Time: 5 minutes I usually travel to London two to three times a month for meetings and lab visits. If I’ve got any length of spare time, I head for what I call my ‘London office’ – aka the British Library. It’s close to Euston station, it’s free (!) it has a nice café for informal meetings and…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Warmest congratulation to Dr Marka van Blitterswijk of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, winner of this year’s Paulo Gontijo Prize in Medicine. The Award is presented to an outstanding young investigator working on ALS/MND, with judging based on the significance of a recent scientific paper published by each applicant, plus an evaluation of the…
Reading Time: 3 minutes It was only one week after the 27th International Symposium on ALS/MND in Dublin had ended when we started the next stage of planning for Boston 2017. Now a year has passed and we are here again, waiting to learn about the exciting research that is happening throughout the world. But before we start talking…
