Further testing six repurposed drugs to see if they could be beneficial to people with MND.
Pre-fellow: Dr Emily Carroll
Principal Investigator: Professor Kevin Talbot
Lead Institution: University of Oxford
MND Association Funding: £89,999
Funding dates: September 2023 - February 2025
About the project
This pre-fellowship project will be looking into drugs that are already used for other conditions (known as drug repurposing) to see whether they could be beneficial for people with MND. It will use an established mouse model of MND to further test 6 pre-identified compounds that have shown promise in correcting some abnormalities seen in neurons in MND. Dr Carroll aims to understand more about how these drugs may work and test them again in cell models and zebrafish models of MND to determine if the same results are seen in different models. These potential treatments of MND will be tested on their own and in combination to assess whether they might be better on their own or when given together.
What could this mean for MND research?
This project could help to identify new potential treatments of MND that could be taken forward for further testing and progress towards clinical trials in people with MND. These drugs could be included in the EXPERTS-ALS programme which will help to rapidly test drugs to assess their potential to slow MND progression. The most promising drugs can then be tested further in clinical trials to examine if the drugs have long-term benefits. Testing potential treatments in people with MND earlier might mean that drugs chosen to progress to larger clinical trials in the future are more likely to show benefit and have a higher chance of success.
Funding schemes such as the MND Association pre-fellowship are really important for early career researchers. Full fellowship applications are competitive and require sufficient pilot data to support your research plan, which takes time to acquire. Given this, funding which bridges the gap between finishing a PhD and applying for a fellowship is key to allow early career researchers time to generate sufficient pilot data for a full fellowship application.
Resources
Project code: 901-800
