By supporting our work you are helping researchers to understand the causes of the condition and how it progresses, and to develop treatments and improve quality of life for people living with MND.

For example:

£10 could provide a set of blood tests for a research participant

• Blood tests are used in many ways such as to measure health and organ function to show how MND affects the body, or to extract DNA to look for genetic links in families.

£50 could enable a research nurse to travel to a rural clinic, to meet people living with MND

• This helps ensure that our research samples are truly representative of the whole of Scotland and that everyone living with MND gets the opportunity to take part in research

£250 could buy the chemicals a laboratory scientist needs to grow stem cells ‘in a dish’ for a week

• We have the technology convert the cells from a skin biopsy into stem cells and then into motor neurons. This is incredibly valuable as a way to study how motor neurons work, what happens to them in MND and to highlight how treatments can slow, stop or reverse the disease. 

£500 could provide an MRI scan for a research participant

• MRI scans are often used in neurological research studies because they are safe and painless for the participant, and can show doctors and scientists an incredible amount of information about the brain.

£1000 could fund 40 hours’ use of a hi-tech microscope

• To investigate how MND causes motor neurons to die, our scientists examine these cells under powerful microscopes. They can also watch what happens when they add drugs, as we work to find new treatments for MND.