Reading Time: 2 minutes We are delighted to announce that Dr Arpan Mehta has been appointed as our latest Lady Edith Wolfson Fellow, jointly funded by the MND Association and Medical Research Council. This clinical research training fellowship will help to launch his career as an aspiring academic neurologist, providing comprehensive training in cellular, molecular and bioinformatics technologies in…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Last year, we introduced a PhD Studentship that we are funding at the University of St Andrews. Under the supervision of Dr Gareth Miles and Prof Siddharthan Chandran, the student working on this project, Amit Chouhan, is investigating why electrical signalling goes wrong in MND. As the project enters its second year, Amit and the…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Researchers can create human motor neurones exhibiting signs of MND in the lab by taking skin cells from a person living with MND and reprogramming them into motor neurones. This is called induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology and gives an ‘in a dish’ human model of MND. iPSCs are being used by several of…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has enabled researchers to create and study living human motor neurones in the lab, derived originally from patient skin cells. This project (our reference 80-970-797) is a collaboration between the labs of Professors Chris Shaw and Jack Price at King’s College in London and Siddharthan Chandran in Edinburgh. It…
Reading Time: 7 minutes Nina Rzechorzek is based at the University of Edinburgh. In 2012 Nina’s article on Prof Siddharthan Chandran’s research was shortlisted for the Access to Understanding Competition. Here she gives an update on his stem cell research. It was a typical morning – trying to juggle experiments, trying not to make mistakes, trying hard to get…
Reading Time: 2 minutes A packed room at the 24th International Symposium on ALS/MND was given a fascinating whistle stop tour covering stem cells, robots and cellular garbage clearing, by Dr Steve Finkbeiner of the University of California, as well as a glimpse into the future of developing ‘disease in a dish’ models of MND. Dr Finkbeiner outlined how…
Reading Time: 4 minutes After a brilliant first day at ENCALS, which included a talk by Dr Johannes Brettschneider, the second day began with a talk by Thierry Latran Speaker Prof Clive Svendsen (Director of the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute) arriving directly from attending at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Symposium. Prof Svendsen gave a riveting talk to over…
Reading Time: 3 minutes Funded by the MND Association, international researchers have used stem cell technology to learn more about the relationship between motor neurones and their support cells. These findings highlight the potential of stem cell technology as a tool to create new human ‘in a dish’ cellular models of disease to learn more about the causes of…
Reading Time: 5 minutes We invited Prof Siddharthan Chandran to be our keynote speaker at our Annual Conference and below we’ve provided a brief overview of his presentation which we hope you’ll find useful as either a recap if you attended or as an insight into MND and stem cells if you couldn’t make it on the day. About Prof Chandran…
Reading Time: 3 minutes A study led by MND Association funded researcher Prof Siddharthan Chandran from the University of Edinburgh has developed a new method to create a diverse group of motor neurones from stem cells. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications could be used to create more accurate and clinically relevant laboratory dish models to learn more…
