Giving a new focus to MND research
Using caretaker cells and molecular mechanics to treat the brain.
Fundraisers and donors to neuroscience and mental health are enabling Cardiff University researchers to study otherwise overlooked facets of disease.
Motor neurone disease (MND) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurons of the brain and spinal cord. It leads to a rapid decline in a patient’s muscles, affecting their movement, speech, ability to swallow and eventually to breathe. Its prognosis is staggering. It kills a third of people within a year and more than half within two years of diagnosis.
Dr Uroosa Chughtai (PhD 2024) is a postdoctoral researcher funded by the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Halfway into her post-doc, she has benefitted from donations towards neuroscience and mental health. By giving or fundraising, you are accelerating her research with specially designed equipment.
“Motor neurons are a type of messenger cell that relay electrical signals from our brain and spinal cords to our muscles. They’re what enable us to move, talk, swallow and breathe. When they degenerate in MND, the muscles they innervate weaken and the body struggles to function.
“However, these motor neurons do not exist in isolation, but are surrounded by other support cells, collectively termed glial cells (latin for “glue”). There is emerging evidence that these support cells also become dysfunctional in MND. My research focuses on one of these cell types – the microglia.
“Microglia are the caretakers of the brain and have important roles throughout development and adulthood. They refine our neuronal connections, remove damaged or unnecessary cells, and defend our brain against damage.
“However, we think that in MND these microglia are either underactive and fail to protect motor neurons or are hyperactive and cause motor neuron damage. My research aims to understand the role of microglia in MND at the molecular level.
“To do this, I grow microglial cells in a dish. As brain cells are difficult to acquire, I use stem cells which can be generated from skin or blood samples and have the ability to be turned into any cell type of interest – in our case microglia. Using stem cell models, I can investigate how microglia with certain MND gene variants behave differently to microglia without.
“These seemingly small observations at a molecular level provide us with an insight into what might be happening in the brains of individuals with MND. We hope that one day this research will lead to a treatment that slows down or even stops MND progression.”
Donors have been a vital part of Uroosa’s research, essential to the data collection, by funding a specialist microscope and giving it additional capabilities.
Because of this microscope and its magnification, Uroosa can observe the changes occurring hour-by-hour in the development of MND.
“The process of converting stem cells to microglia is vital to my research and takes several weeks of careful lab work, during which the cells change in appearance. It’s important that we can observe these changes to ensure the health and quality of our cells. However, these cells are 4 times smaller than the width of a strand of human hair, so we require specialist microscopes to see them.
“These grants are invaluable for proof-of-concept pilot data and for giving researchers some independence at the start of their careers.”
— Dr Uroosa Chughtai (PhD 2024)
“Thanks to donor funding we’ve been able to purchase additional capabilities for our cell microscope, which has been invaluable for ensuring the quality of our research. Ours is a specialist microscope which has live imaging and is equipped with a camera and screen, making it perfect for teaching and training.
“So donors are not only contributing to cutting-edge MND research but are helping to train the next generation of neuroscience researchers!
“I’m extremely grateful for the support of donors - your contributions have been invaluable to our efforts in understanding more about this devastating disease.”
Thanks to your fundraising and gifts to neuroscience and mental health research at Cardiff University, we are edging closer to treating this fatal disease.
