First projects supported by the MND Translational Research Fund announced

My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, LifeArc and MND Association have jointly awarded £1 million to researchers at University College London (UCL) to progress two pioneering new treatments for MND. These are the first two projects to be funded by the MND Translational Research Fund that the three charities joined up to create, with the total funding available for research being £1.5 million.

The first project, led by Professor Pietro Fratta of UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology together with the Nucleic Acid Therapy Accelerator (NATA), aims to develop a gene therapy for MND. Using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), designed to rescue a specific gene lost during disease, the researchers hope to slow down, stop or reverse progression of MND. ASOs are an exciting development for MND, following the clinical trial of another ASO, Tofersen, for SOD1-MND, for which results were published last year.

The second project, led by Dr Barney Bryson and Professor Linda Greensmith of UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, explores an innovative treatment that has the potential to restore lost muscle function and prevent further muscle wastage in people with MND. The team’s unique therapeutic strategy involves injecting light-sensitive motor neurons derived from genetically modified human adult stem cells into nerves that control muscles in the limbs, hopefully restoring function of the paralysed muscles in response to pulses of light.

Read the full press release here.