Yorkshire university given hundreds of thousands of pounds to research pioneering treatment for motor neurone disease

A research team at the University of Sheffield’s Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) has been awarded the grant by an Australian charity, FightMND, to step up studies into the neuro-degenerative disease.

The funding of US $700,000 (£560,000) will be used to finance the first human trials of a drug, called M102, which has been found to have beneficial properties in tackling MND.

Professor Dame Pamela Shaw, the director of SITraN and the National Institute Health Research’s Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre, said: “M102 has properties which allow multiple protective pathways to be activated within the nervous system, and we are very hopeful that it may have beneficial effects in slowing the progression of MND.

“We are very excited for MND patients, as FightMND is supporting our effort to advance this important therapy into clinical trials for our patients.”

MND, which is also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, affects about 5,000 people in the UK and 30,000 people in the USA, with numbers predicted to rise.

MND is a disorder that affects the nerves – or motor neurons –in the brain and spinal cord that form the connection between the nervous system and muscles to enable movement of the body.

The messages from these nerves gradually stop reaching the muscles, leading them to weaken, stiffen and eventually waste away.

There is currently no cure for MND and no effective treatments to halt or reverse the progression of the devastating disease.

The beneficial properties in the M102 drug were discovered by researchers at the University in Sheffield, who are working in partnership with a USA-based bio-pharmaceutical company, Aclipse Therapeutics, seven years ago.

Pre-clinical models highlighted the potential for M102 to stop and reverse the progression of MND, which affects a patient’s ability to walk, talk, eat and breathe.

Patients with MND have included the world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who died at the age of 76 two years ago after being first diagnosed with the condition in 1963.

The former England and Leeds Rhinos rugby league player Rob Burrow, who played 493 games in a 16-year career with the West Yorkshire club, announced in December last year that he had been diagnosed with MND.

FightMND’s research director, Dr Bec Sheean, said: “We are delighted to be supporting the development of M102, which has the potential to be a disease-modifying drug that improves on current standard of care.”

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James Mitchinson