Reading Time: 2 minutes A team at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience are creating a zebrafish model to study the C9orf72 gene mutation in MND, and work out its role in the brain and spinal cord (our reference 864-792). Zebrafish are a good way of modelling what happens in human MND. We know that many of the genes…
Reading Time: 2 minutes During the early stages of MND it is proposed that motor neurones are more susceptible to an imbalance of oxygen within the cells, known as oxidative stress. Prof Dame Kay Davies, at the University of Oxford, has previously shown that increasing the levels of the gene Oxr1 can protect motor neurones from death caused by…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Some people with MND develop an increasingly recognised form of dementia, known as frontotemporal dementia or FTD (for more information visit http://www.ftdtalk.org/). The main symptoms of FTD include alterations in decision making, behaviour and difficulty with language. The relationship between MND and FTD is not well understood. Prof Julie Snowden and PhD student Jennie Saxon at…
Reading Time: < 1 minute PhD student Emma Smith has recently started the second year of her MND Association-funded research project at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SiTRAN) in Sheffield (our project reference: 870-792). With her supervisors Dr Kurt De Vos and Dr Andrew Grierson she is investigating the role of mitochondria in C9orf72-related MND. Mitochondria are the cell’s…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Mistakes in a gene known as ALS5, or spatacsin, cause a rare form of inherited MND that develops at a much earlier age than most other forms of the disease. Under supervision from Dr Cahir O’Kane, MND Association funded PhD student Alex Patto has been using fruit flies to understand how mistakes in spatacsin cause…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Stephanie Rainey-Smith (pictured left) has recently passed her MND Association funded PhD studentship. Congratulations Stephanie! This studentship was somewhat different from the others that we fund as it was a Tim Bridgman Memorial Studentship. Through his life, Tim Bridgeman had a richly diverse and successful career with a company called Swire since he joined them in 1968. Tim was unfortunately…
