New MND funding awarded to Clinical Fellow

Euan MacDonald Centre member, Dr Liz Elliott, has been awarded joint funding from charity MND Scotland and the Chief Scientists Office for a new research project investigating the processes underlying the differences in MND disease progression. 

After completing my general medical training I was fortunate to be appointed last year as a Rowling Fellow at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at the University of Edinburgh, and to become a member of the Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research. During this fellowship I have been privileged to meet people with MND and their families, and these experiences have inspired this PhD project.

MND is a hugely variable condition in terms of both the symptoms that people experience and also the rate at which these symptoms progress. Currently, we don’t understand the biological mechanisms which cause this, and this presents a major challenge to managing the disease and to developing new treatments.

In Dr Elliott's new research project she will explore MND research progression using detailed information from the CARE-MND national research platform linked to samples from the MRC Edinburgh Brain Bank. By using cutting-edge methods pioneered in Edinburgh, the research study can analyse these tissue samples at a microscopic level of detail. Dr Elliott can also investigate if different samples have unique genetic patterns which may explain the disease differences. A greater understanding of how the disease progresses in the human body will help to develop tests and treatments to improve the lives of people with MND in the future.

I would like to thank MND Scotland and the Chief Scientist Office for the Clinical Academic Fellowship position, which I look forward to starting.  I would also like to thank the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic and the Euan MacDonald Centre for supporting my role as a clinical fellow over the last year.