MND Australia Innovator Grants for MQ researchers
Four early- and mid-career researchers from the Macquarie University MND Research Centre have received $400,000 in grant funding from MND Australia.
MND Australia is the national peak body of state organisations supporting people living with and impacted by the neurodegenerative disease.
The four Innovator Grants are part of a $2.55 million funding round just announced.
Dr Sayanthooran Saravanabavan has received the Daniel Veysey MND Research Grant, worth $100,000.
Dr Saravanabavan’s project looks at novel approaches to examining the environmental risks associated with MND.
While MND can be inherited, environmental factors are believed to play a key role in determining who develops the disease and how quickly it progresses, especially in non-inherited or sporadic cases.
This is evident in identical twins, where, despite sharing the same genes, only one may develop MND. Identifying environmental triggers, however, has been challenging because of a reliance on questionnaires and patient records.
This project will use a novel assay in an innovative way to begin systematically investigating how environmental and workplace factors contribute to both forms of MND. It also aims to lay the groundwork for exploring how genes and the environment interact to trigger the disease.
Dr Grant Richter has received the $100,000 Ian Sneddon Two Rivers Run MND Research Grant to look at the impact of phosphorylation on RNA binding.
In almost all MND patients, the naturally occurring brain protein TDP-43 becomes dysfunctional, failing to process RNA properly. This leads to the disruption of critical cellular processes and the formation of toxic protein build-ups.
Dr Richter’s project will investigate how the process of phosphorylation may drive early changes in TDP-43’s ability to bind RNA, and contribute to disease progression.
The team will observe how phosphorylated TDP-43 interacts with RNA in lab-grown neurons, then the effect of phosphorylated TDP-43 on living motor neurons in transparent zebrafish.
Ms Natalie Grima has received the Superball XVII MND Research Grant, also valued at $100,000, to investigate the molecular origin of a subgroup of sporadic MND that makes up around one third of all MND cases.
These patients have a unique molecular signature in the cerebellum, a region of the brain with a lesser-known role in the disease. They also show the same pattern of hallmark TDP-43 pathology as patients with a mutation in the C9orf72 gene.
The team aims to uncover whether this subgroup shares other similarities with C9orf72-linked MND.
Identification of similar genomic (DNA) or transcriptomic (RNA) signatures could mean that individuals belonging to this sporadic MND subgroup have the same therapeutic targets as for the major genetic cause of MND.
Dr Sonam Parakh has received $99,999 from the Col Bambrick MND Research Grant to investigate the role of GABAA agonists as novel therapeutics against TDP-43 pathology.
The project will explore whether existing drugs that target the electrical properties of motor neurons, and are already used for other conditions, could be beneficial for treatment of MND. These electrical properties regulate nerve activity, and are critical to the brain’s communication system.
The research team will study whether these drugs are protective in lab-grown human cells and in mice, with a view to developing a new treatment for MND.