Reading Time: 3 minutes Developing a way to rapidly diagnose and track how MND progresses over time is a ‘holy grail’ of MND research. The search for so called ‘biomarkers’ is an area that researchers funded by the MND Association are actively pursuing. MND Association grantees Dr Andrea Malaspina and Dr Ian Pike (Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Biomarkers in Oxford (BioMOx) is a research project with the aim of identifying a diagnostic biomarker for MND, which could be used to track the progression of this condition. What are biomarkers? The aim is to identify biomarkers, or ‘biological fingerprints’ for MND. This could be through testing blood and spinal fluid (CSF) samples from…
Reading Time: 3 minutes To mark International Clinical Trials Day (20 May) we reflect on the ALS Clinical Trials Guidelines workshop that took place in March. The MND Association co-sponsored this successful meeting, held at Airlie House in Virginia USA. Approximately 140 delegates from across the world attended, including 11 MND researchers and doctors from the UK. Why was…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Saturday afternoon saw the 25th International Symposium on ALS/MND expand from two to three sessions running in parallel. Times have changed from the early years of the meeting when sessions finished at lunchtime on the second day because there wasn’t enough stuff to talk about! Rather than flitting between three different lecture halls, I opted to…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dr Andrea Malaspina is an Association-funded researcher investigating biomarkers, or ‘biological fingerprints’ of MND. Here he blogs about working with patients and basic science. I regularly meet people living with MND due to my role as a Consultant Neurologist at the Bart’s and the London MND Care Centre and one of the most common questions…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Medical Research Council (MRC)/ MND Association Lady Edith Wolfson Senior Clinical Research fellow, Dr Martin Turner writes about recent developments in his BioMox study. My first ever blog. I decided to share developments in ‘BioMOx’ – the Oxford Study for Biomarkers in MND, which has been funded through the MND Association’s pioneering Lady Edith Wolfson…
Reading Time: 2 minutes To end volunteer week, Katy Styles, who is a Campaigns contact for the East Kent Development Group of the MND Association, blogs about her and her husband Mark’s experience of volunteering to take part in the Biomarker’s in Oxford (BioMOx) study. It started as an innocuous question following a neurology appointment at the Oxford MND Care Centre,…
Reading Time: 4 minutes With the huge advances in biology, it can seem that areas such as brain scanning are relatively stagnant, but we are starting to see a growing momentum in the field, allowing researchers to learn more about the ‘real time’ events occurring in individuals with MND. Hand in hand with the improving technology that allows us…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Hot on the heels of Kelly’s posting on Tuesday on the new MRI findings by researchers at Oxford, the same group was yesterday hosting the 1st Neuroimaging Symposium in ALS/MND – a three-day conference, co sponsored by the MND Association, bringing together neurologists, physicists and psychologists from ten different countries across the world. I attended the opening…
Reading Time: < 1 minute We are pleased to announce that the first results from the Oxford Study for Biomarkers in MND/ALS (known as BioMOx) study have been published in the prestigious journal Neurology. From this study, a common signature of nerve damage has been identified in the brains of people living with MND using an advanced MRI technique. The findings…
