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 At present there is no diagnostic test for MND, and diagnosis is usually determined through clinical observations and by excluding other diseases. Because of this, a definitive diagnosis of MND can take up to several months. By developing an effective diagnostic test for MND, we will be able to diagnose MND earlier and put in…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Phillipa Rewaj, Rebecca Devon and Shuna Colville from the Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research, University of Edinburgh, help us celebrate Global MND Awareness day. This year’s theme is ‘voice’ and here the researchers provide us with an update on their pioneering ‘voicebanking project’, which is part-funded by the MND Association. Ring ring….ring ring….…
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: 3 minutes On 3 March 2014, researchers based at the University of Edinburgh published a research paper that extends our understanding of the childhood disease – Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). Although this is not MND so-to-speak, the disease does affect the motor neurones. Plus, the results were so interesting; I couldn’t resist writing a blog post about them.…
Reading Time: 3 minutes MND Association-funded researcher Dr Sharon Abrahams (University of Edinburgh) has recently published an article on the Edinburgh Cognitive ALS Screen (ECAS) in the prestigious journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration. It is now recognised that, in up to 50% of people living with MND not only the motor system (walking, talking breathing etc) but also…
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…
