Developing a tool for use in clinical settings that uses biological data to help to identify different subtypes of MND.
Non-Clinical Fellow: Dr Heather Marriott
Lead Institution: University of Sheffield
MND Association Funding: £184,893
Funding dates: February 2026 - January 2029
About the project
Research suggests that while the symptoms of MND can look similar, the underlying biology may vary greatly between different people. However, current diagnosis and treatment decisions are mostly based on clinical features alone. To uncover clues about what is driving the disease in different people, Dr Heather Marriott previously identified different subtypes of MND based on trends in gene activity, which means looking at which genes were turned on and off in different people with MND. Now, Heather will build on this research by developing a tool that combines multiple types of biological data into a scoring system that can be used to better classify, understand and ultimately treat different types of MND. It is hoped that the tool will be able to use lots of different types of data collected from people with MND, and work even if some biological data is missing, which will make it more useable in real-world clinical settings.
What could this mean for MND research?
The overall aim of this project is to match up care with each person’s underlying biology, which could accelerate the use of precision medicine in MND.
Project code: 2572-799