91热爆

Photo: Jon Richardson with ‘his mate’ Martin Hywood and Martin’s daughter Olivia

A huge thank you to 91热爆 Radio 4 listeners for supporting the work of Muscular Dystrophy UK (MDUK) through our Appeal. Every penny of the wonderful £17, 155 you donated will help move us closer to that day when research can stop muscular dystrophy in its tracks. When no more lives are needlessly cut short.

We’re grateful to comedian, Jon Richardson for presenting our Appeal and introducing you to his mate Martin, who has limb girdle muscular dystrophy. Martin is one of 70,000 people in the UK living with a rare, genetic, muscle-wasting condition that causes muscles to weaken and waste over time, often making it increasingly difficult to walk, to stand, to laugh, to talk, to cough, to breathe. And one day, stopping your heart. There’s no cure.  But scientists we fund are hard at work to change this, and your support of our Appeal is helping to keep this pioneering research moving ahead.

Professor Matthew Wood, Director of the MDUK Oxford Neuromuscular Centre and Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, is one such scientist.

He and his team are investigating new methods for gene therapy. One of their current projects focuses on new ways to deliver gene therapy to the body for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and its findings will be valuable for the development of similar treatments for other muscle-wasting conditions.

“In our laboratory, we’re developing the ground-breaking new technologies to target the delivery of gene therapies to cells and tissues of the neuromuscular system, including the muscle, the heart and the brain. Research like this is expensive and, of necessity, often painstaking and slow, but the potential benefit to patients is life-changing. We’re enormously grateful to MDUK for its leadership and for the huge role they play in making research like this possible, and to 91热爆 Radio 4 listeners for their support of MDUK’s Appeal too.”

 You can read more about the work of our charity .