Reading Time: 3 minutes Researchers from University College London led by Dr Pietro Fratta and Dr John Thornton found that muscle imaging can help distinguish Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) from Kennedy’s Disease based on the way specific muscle groups deteriorate in each condition. The method can also help assess the severity of the disease. ALS is a rapidly progressing…
Reading Time: 5 minutes Findings from the largest biomarker study of people with Kennedy’s Disease, published in the journal Neurology, found a predictive biomarker to help in differential diagnosis and tracking clinical progression. Led by Dr Pietro Fratta from University College London, the research team highlighted the importance of markers of muscle mass rather than neuronal damage in Kennedy’s…
Reading Time: 3 minutes It has been almost a year since we announced that AMBRoSIA (A Multicentre Biomarker Resource Strategy In ALS) had begun to recruit participants (read the Autumn 2017 edition of Thumbprint). AMBRoSIA is the biggest project that the MND Association has ever funded and recruitment occurs at three sites throughout the UK (Sheffield, headed by Prof…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Dr Pietro Fratta completed his first MRC-MND Association Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2014. Last year he was awarded a new £1.16 million Clinician Scientist Fellowship to continue his research at University College London, studying the earliest physical changes that affect motor neurons in MND (our reference 946-795). Our contribution to this four year research…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Did you know the MND Association also supports people who have Kennedy’s disease? In May a new clinic specialising in Kennedy’s disease opened in London at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. To mark this big step in helping support and treat people with Kennedy’s disease, Katy Styles who campaigns on behalf of the Association, and whose husband Mark has…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dr Pietro Fratta (University College London) received his initial Training Fellowship through the MND Association/ Medical Research Council (MRC) Lady Edith Wolfson Programme in 2010. Starting on 1 February 2015, Dr Fratta was awarded a Clinician Scientist Fellowship to continue his research into MND. Totalling £1.16 million, of which the Association has committed to contribute…
Reading Time: < 1 minute Boxing day is here, there’s still some leftover turkey but let’s not forget… it’s the second day of Christmas! “On the second day of Christmas MND research gives to you… TWO new inherited MND genes” 2014 saw the discovery of two inherited MND genes, the first being MATR3 in March and the second being TUBA4A…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Following on from our ’year of hope’ appeal last month an international team of researchers, including two funded by the MND Association, have identified mutations in the Matrin 3 (MATR3) gene as a cause of the rare inherited form of MND. Medical Research Council (MRC)/ MND Association Lady Edith Wolfson Clinical Research Fellow Dr Pietro…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Background to TDP43 A characteristic sign of motor neurones affected by motor neurone disease is the clumps of protein visible down a microscope. Although these proteins have been observed in motor neurones from people affected by MND since the earliest descriptions in the 1870s, a key discovery was made when the identity of a protein,…
Reading Time: 6 minutes There’s a scene in the 1969 film Battle of Britain where Laurence Olivier, who plays the Air Chief Marshal, is in a meeting with his two Vice Marshals. One of them complains that they don’t have enough planes; the other is more concerned with keeping the airfields working. Olivier silences them both by telling them that…
