Reading Time: 3 minutes My name is Sara Tacconelli and I grew up in a small town in Abruzzo, Italy, and I was raised in a nurturing environment, surrounded by love and affection from my family and friends. I always had a passion for science and as I grew older, a strong desire to dedicate my life to a meaningful cause emerged within me- a desire to somehow make a difference in the lives of others.
Reading Time: 6 minutes As part of our Symposium Spotlight series, we’re looking back on some of the research presented at the 32nd International Symposium on ALS/MND. This blog takes a closer look at the Stephen Hawking Memorial Lecture (supported by The Stephen Hawking Foundation) which was presented by Professor Jennifer Doudna, a joint Nobel Prize winner for her…
Reading Time: 6 minutes Each year, MND Associations across the globe mark 21 June as a special day of recognition, acknowledging the impact that MND has on people around the world. MND is a global problem. It does not discriminate, and for every person diagnosed the effects of the disease will be forever felt by their families and friends.…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Guest researcher blog post written by Darija Šoltić. Originally from Croatia, I came to the UK to do my PhD in neuroscience, where I worked on spinal muscular atrophy, a debilitating childhood motor neuron disease (MND). Earlier this year, I joined the Ruepp group (led by Dr Marc-David Ruepp) at the UK Dementia Research Institute…
Reading Time: 5 minutes In recent news, a number of press releases highlighted a paper published in the journal Cell, in which scientists, under the leadership of the University of Toronto’s Professor Peter St George-Hyslop, and in collaboration with University of Cambridge, described the process of how the FUS protein leads to the development of motor neurone disease (MND)…
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 Each year, the MND Association dedicates the month of June to raising MND awareness. This year, we focus on the eyes – in most people with MND the only part of their body they can still move and the only way left for them to communicate. Alongside the Association-wide campaign, the Research Development team selected…
Reading Time: 4 minutes 332 delegates, 135 posters, 41 talks, one goal: to cure ALS The European Network for the Cure of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ENCALS) was set up to find a cure for ALS/MND by working collaboratively across 35 research centres (universities and hospitals) throughout Europe. The 14th meeting of ENCALS took place in Milan between 19-21 May…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Prof Vladimir Buchman (Cardiff University)’s research was selected as one of the best research studies, as decided by the journal editors, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in 2013. He is building on this research in his Association-funded project, which began on 1 April 2014. The background to FUS: In 2009 an international team…
Reading Time: 5 minutes From Sunday morning to Tuesday evening last week, there was a lot of talk of MND research going on in Liverpool. The reason for this ‘hotspot’ of discussions was due to the annual meeting of an international consortium of MND researchers taking place at the University of Liverpool. The 10th International Consortium on SOD1 and…
