Reading Time: 6 minutes Last month we hosted our annual event for early career researchers (ECRs) in the UK. MND EnCouRage UK is a two day event which aims to support ECRs to build skills and connections which will help them move forward in their careers and continue to work within MND research. One of these skills is communicating…
Reading Time: 6 minutes My name is Tatyana Shelkovnikova, I am an MND Association Lady Edith Wolfson Senior Non-Clinical fellow. I lead my own group at the Medicines Discovery Institute, Cardiff University. I chose to move my fellowship to a drug discovery unit with a strong neuroscience portfolio of projects to be able to stay at the frontier of…
Reading Time: 5 minutes Guest researcher blog post written by Sam Bryce-Smith – sharing his research into changes in ‘post-code’ sequences of RNA, how it continues during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the importance of his funding. We are extremely grateful for the support of the London Freemasons, who are generously supporting one of our new PhD Studentships held by…
Reading Time: 6 minutes Guest researcher blog post about the recently published paper on the identification of potential new biomarkers in the blood, in the journal Brain Communications. Written by lead author, Dr Greig Joilin, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Sussex: Diagnosis of MND is currently a time-consuming process of elimination, causing patients and families prolonged stress…
Reading Time: 8 minutes Following on from our previous catch-up blog on clinical management talks presented at the Symposium, here is a continuation that looks at talks focusing on treatment therapies and causes of MND. RNA Binding & Transport RNA is the lesser-known ‘cousin’ of DNA – it contains copies of genetic instructions sent out from the nucleus –…
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 The defects in the C9orf72 gene are known to cause motor neurone disease, but researchers don’t understand why. Defective copies of this gene are passed down in some families affected by the rare, inherited form of MND. This week MND Association grantees Drs Guillaume Hautbergue, Lydia Castelli and colleagues, based at the Sheffield Institute of…
Reading Time: 3 minutes In light of the upcoming Biomedical Research Advisory Panel meeting happening on Friday 7 April that will discuss which new research projects the MND Association will fund, we are pleased to report on the progress of one of our already-funded researchers. In their three year project, funded by the MND Association, Prof Annalisa Pastore (King’s College London)…
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: 2 minutes As well as helping out with our ‘blog a day’ during MND Awareness Month, we also asked our researchers to get involved in ‘baking’ to become our first ‘MND Researchers Bake off Champion’. We received some great science-themed cakes, from zebrafish biscuits to a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance(NMR) machine cake! Our Director of Research, Dr Brain Dickie said:…
