Investigating the role of TDP-43 clumps in brain cells in MND.
Principal Investigator: Dr Fiona LeBeau
Lead Institution: Newcastle University
MND Association Funding: £160,000
Funding dates: February 2024 - January 2026
About the project
In MND and FTD, a protein called TDP-43 clumps together and builds up within neurons but it is unclear exactly how these clumps cause damage and death of motor neurons. This project will develop a new platform to observe the very early changes related to TDP-43 that happen in brain cells in MND and FTD. The researchers will collect healthy brain tissue from people undergoing brain surgery, keep this tissue alive in the lab and engineer it to produce TDP-43 clumps like those seen in MND and FTD. This will enable the researchers to observe how these clumps might cause damage to different cell types within human brain tissue and increase current understanding of the role that TDP-43 plays in MND and FTD.
What could this mean for MND research?
This project could help to reveal more about how TDP-43 clumps are involved in the death of motor neurons and help to identify new targets for the development of future therapies. The model used in this project can also be used to test new potential treatments that target TDP-43 more quickly and might give a better indication of whether these drugs may be effective for MND in human brain tissue.
Project code: 890-791
