Reading Time: 3 minutes Sally Thompson is the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC)’s Communications Officer. Here she blogs about the AMRC and the strong collective voice of medical research charities. Medical research is the UK’s favourite charitable cause, with over 11 million of us giving money to medical research charities in a typical month. Charities want to fund…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Dr Richard Bedlack is based at the Duke ALS Clinic in America. Back in 2009 he founded ALSUntangled and to start off MND Awareness week he writes about the group and what they’ve achieved in the past five years. ALSUntangled started in 2009 as a method for helping people living with MND (commonly known as ALS…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sylvia Bediako is the Research Accounts Officer at King’s College London. Here she explains about her job role and how she works with the MND Association. The project process starts with our Pre Award Team receiving a request from the Principal Investigator (the main researcher involved in the research project), about their intention to apply…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Happy Father’s day! If you’ve got your dad a smartphone, or another hi-tech gadget, then this blog is perfect for you! Prof Ammar Al-Chalabi is a Professor of Neurology and Complex Disease Genetics at King’s College London. He is also Director of the King’s MND Care and Research Centre in London. Here he blogs about his Association-funded research…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dr Jean Waters is a former trustee of the MND Association who is living with MND, here she blogs about what it was like being a member on our Biomedical Research Advisory Panel (BRAP) and what it was like being a trustee. A member of BRAP Like most people living with MND I have a…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Scott Maloney is the Association’s MND Connect Team Leader. Following Alun’s volunteering roles, Scott explains more about MND Connect, how they can help, and how they work with the Research Development team. About MND Connect The MND Connect Helpline is the ‘frontline’ of the MND Association. They take and answer calls and emails from anyone…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Alun Owen is an Association Trustee (Chair elect). During Carers’ week week he writes about how he got involved in the Association, as well as his varied role as a volunteer and the importance of research. I joined the Merseyside Branch of the MND Association 12 years ago following the loss of my partner mainly as a…
Reading Time: 2 minutes In the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), the gene therapy group led by Prof Mimoun Azzouz is approaching the final stages of preclinical development of a treatment for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (a childhood disease of the motor neurones). Here Chris Binny explains more about the group’s work. About Spinal Muscular Atrophy Spinal muscular atrophy…
Reading Time: 5 minutes The MND Association is custodian of the UK MND DNA Bank. Over 3,000 people with MND, carers and family members donated blood samples to the Bank, from which DNA was extracted, ready for use by the MND research community. The logistics of managing, storing and sending out the correct samples for researchers to use is…
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s been six months since the UK MND DNA Bank (DNA Bank) opened its doors to researchers around the world, so what has been happening to all those samples? Dr Lucy Smith, Research Information Administrator at the MND Association, explains: The DNA Bank is the first UK biobank dedicated to MND and has 3000 samples under…
