Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.

For 30 years the Department of Molecular Neuroscience has been the premier department for the discovery of the genetic underpinnings of neurodegenerative diseases.
 More than half the genes which cause different forms of dementia
including Alzheimer’s disease, movement disorders including Parkinson’s disease, motor neuron disease and ataxia have been discovered by people in the department.  We continue to find new genes causing these diseases and as we make these discoveries we continue to put together the jigsaw of the underlying biology of these diseases which will help us to consider new treatment approaches. 

We also house the Queen Square Brain Bank, which houses the
world’s largest collection of Parkinson’s disease and genetic dementia brains…  this gives us the ability to have a unique insight into how diseases start.. with genetic mutations.. and how they finish.. With the underlying pathology of the disease.

With the advent of stem cell technology, we will have also led the way in taking skin cells from patients with these diseases and turning these cells into neurons, so we can study exactly how patients’ mutations affect neurons we have grown from those very patients.  By this means, we are studying dementias, Parkinson’s disease, motor nuron disease and ataxia. All of the resources we generate we make freely available to the scientific community.  Our genetic data, the stem cells we make from patients, and the brain tissue from the Brain Bank are all available for researcher across the world as are other tissue samples we collect, so by helping us, you are helping the global world effort to beat these diseases.

How we will use the money given to us.

All the money given to us will be used to support our research effort.  In fact, if you are a UK taxpayer and sign the Gift Aid, the government will add to your donation.  No money is spent on administration.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me

J.hardy(at)ucl.ac.uk

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.