THE My Name’5 Doddie Foundation has committed a further £1.4million towards research to help find a cure for motor neurone disease (MND). This brings the total amount directed to the cause by the trustees to over £2 million and, subject to contracts being finalised, will support research projects over the next three years.

The trustees – acting on the advice the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board – have agreed a series of grant awards to MND research projects at centres of excellence across the UK.

“I am delighted that we are making such an important contribution to vital research work,” said Doddie Weir OBE, the former Melrose, Border Reivers, Newcastle Falcons, Scotland and Lions back-five forward, who has spearheaded this campaign since announcing that he had been diagnosed with the diseases just under two years ago. “I’d like to thank everyone who has made this possible, but especially the thousands of fund raisers who have given their time, energy and imagination to help us raise such significant funds. Our advisory panel has really helped steer our thinking and given us direction – we greatly appreciate their input.”

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Among the benefactors of the Foundations fund-raising activities is the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience.

“We will use this generous support to enable our team to build the manpower needed to conduct the pipeline of exciting clinical trials on the horizon for patients with MND,” said Dame Pam Shaw, Professor of Neurology at Sheffield University ‘Our goal is to find therapies which protect motor neurones and slow down the progression of MND symptoms and also to give as many patients as possible the opportunity to participate in new treatment trials.”

The work of Chris Shaw, Professor of Neurology at King’s College, London, has already benefited from the Foundation’s support and this has been extended. In addition, further investment has also been awarded to Ammar Al-Chalabi, Professor of Neurology, also at King’s, who said: “We are very grateful to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation at King’s. With their generous support, we can now run more MND clinical trials more quickly, speeding the search for a cure.”

The Foundation is very keen to encourage collaboration between the centres and to that end it has announced further investment into drug repurposing research with Professor Kevin Talbot from Oxford University, which will complement Professor Siddharthan Chandran’s work already initiated at Edinburgh.

“One of the major barriers to finding effective treatments for MND is that currently drugs are tried one at a time, which is costly and slow,'” said Professor Talbot. “In this research, funded by the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, we will screen large numbers of drugs which are already licenced for use in humans, to identify drugs which may be much more effective in combination. This gives us a great chance of rapidly accelerating the search for effective treatments for MND.”

Professor Tom Gillingwater, co-collaborator on the project, said: “We are massively grateful to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation for supporting our project. By bringing together two laboratories from Oxford and Edinburgh you are facilitating cutting-edge research that will use a combination of complementary techniques and approaches in order to identify effective new drugs for motor neurone disease.”

My Name’5 Doddie Foundation is also committed to helping those affected by motor neurone disease and has given a total of £350,000 to MND Scotland and MND Association. This is distributed as grants on behalf of the foundation and helps pay for adaptations to homes and funds respite care for carers.

My Name’5 Doddie Foundation was launched in November 2017 by the former Scotland rugby player after he revealed he was suffering from motor neurone disease.

To find out more about the work of My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, please visit their website www.myname5doddie.co.uk.