Reading Time: 6 minutes The recent publication of the results from the Phase 3 Tofersen trial, an experimental gene therapy for the treatment of MND in people with a change in the gene that instructs the SOD1 protein, has provided increasing confidence that Tofersen is having a beneficial effect in people living with SOD1 MND. This and the development…
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 The results from a study looking at the possible links between exposure to environmental toxins (found in pesticides) and motor neurone disease (MND) was published yesterday (9 May) in the journal JAMA Neurology. A group of researchers from the University of Michigan, led by Dr Feng-Chiao Su and Dr Eva Feldman, have found that exposure…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Continuing the ‘gene hunting theme’ on from our last blog post on Project MinE, a recently published study has shed more light on the C9orf72 gene mutation. The C9orf72 gene mutation is the most common cause of the rare inherited form of MND (about 40% of all people with inherited MND have this mutation). Some…
Reading Time: 3 minutes The fantastic news that Patrick Joyce and his co-inventors have won the 2015 Hackaday Prize for their ‘Eyedrivomatic’ invention is one of a number of research prizes announced this autumn. At the beginning of November Prof Martin Turner was presented with the Graham Bull Prize for Clinical Science by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). The…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Update (February 2017): All sites are now closed and not recruiting for participants. If you would like to be added to a waiting list for the Sheffield Support Snood, please contact Lise Sproson. We are funding, together with the NIHR i4i (National Institute for Heath Research invention for innovation) programme, a research team in Sheffield who have developed a new type…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Researchers identify that loss of nerve signalling may be an early sign of MND Published in Nature Communications on 12 January 2015, Association-funded PhD student Anna-Claire Devlin, based at the University of St Andrews, has identified that loss of nerve signalling may be an early sign of MND. Under the leadership of Dr Gareth Miles and…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Published in Lancet Neurology on 7 October 2014, Association-funded researcher, Prof Ammar Al-Chalabi based at King’s College London, and an international team of researchers have used a new approach to study the causes of MND. Under the leadership of Prof Neil Pearce, based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, researchers have used a mathematical…
Reading Time: 3 minutes The ALS #icebucketchallenge, which started in America, has now well and truly hit the UK! The social media craze has seen thousands of people getting involved in raising awareness of ‘ALS’( the most common form of MND), and funds for the Association, by placing a bucket of ice-cold water over their heads. But what happens…
Reading Time: 4 minutes MND Association and Alzheimer’s Research UK-funded researchers from University College London have identified that toxic proteins may cause motor neurones to die in C9orf72 MND and frontotemporal dementia. Published open access in the journal Science on Thursday 7 August, this research explains more about one of the most common forms of inherited MND.
