Hello and thank you for visiting my JustGiving page!

I am Francesca and I am running the Sheffield Half Marathon and fundraising for Genetic Disease Research at The University of Sheffield.

Genetic Disease Research has already developed gene therapy treatment for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), saving numerous children’s lives.
The recent opening of the Gene Therapy Innovation and Manufacturing Centre proves that investing in this promising, pioneering technology is bound to make a change!
Fundraising Genetic Disease Research will help tackling severe conditions as Motor Neuron Disease (MND), frontotemporal dementia and COL4A1 or Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia.

Your help/support aids in pioneering research in gene therapy treatments that offer hope for patients living with genetic diseases.

I am also a researcher at The University of Sheffield, in the Hearing Research Group at the Neuroscience Institute.
Most of the time I spend in the lab I focus on the experiment ahead and get excited for even the smallest achievement, often forgetting that science is not just a stimulating and exciting everyday job, but it can really make a difference and improve our lives!
My lab is seeking strategies to use gene therapy to ameliorate age-related hearing loss. This condition affects people worldwide and it provokes social isolation and depression, and to date there is no cure.

I am thus running away from the bench and hopefully I will raise funds to bring back, not to my bench specifically, but to the cutting-edge Genetic Disease Research at The University of Sheffield!