The former rugby star has pledged to help find a cure for the degenerative condition by funding groundbreaking research

A former rugby star’s charity has provided a whopping sum to help fight motor neurone disease.

My Name’5 Doddie Foundation has committed a further £1.4million towards research to help fund a cure for motor neurone disease (MND).

The charity’s trustees have agreed a series of grant awards to MND research projects at centres of excellence across the UK.

The charity, launched at the end of 2017 following the news that former Scotland rugby star Doddie Weir is suffering from the degenerative condition, has now donated £2 million to MND research.

Weir said: “I am delighted that we are making such an important contribution to vital research work. I’d like to thank everyone who has made this possible, but especially the thousands of fundraisers who have given their time, energy and imagination to help us raise such significant funds. Our advisory panel has really helped steer our thinking and given us direction – we greatly appreciate their input.”

The Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board helps determine its research investment strategy. It now regularly engages with the research community to seek advice and to help it better understand MND and work towards finding a cure.

Dame Pam Shaw, professor of neurology at Sheffield University, said: “We will use this generous support to enable our team to build the manpower needed to conduct the pipeline of exciting clinical trials on the horizon for patients with MND. Our goal is to find therapies which protect motor neurones and slow down the progression of MND symptoms and also to give as many patients as possible the opportunity to participate in new treatment trials.”

The foundation is very keen to encourage collaboration between the centres and today it has announced further investment into drug repurposing research, with Professor Kevin Talbot from Oxford University, which will complement Prof Siddharthan Chandran’s work already initiated at Edinburgh.

Professor Talbot said: “One of the major barriers to finding effective treatments for MND is that currently drugs are tried one at a time, which is costly and slow. In this research, funded by the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, we will screen large numbers of drugs which are already licenced for use in humans, to identify drugs which may be much more effective in combination. This gives us a great chance of rapidly accelerating the search for effective treatments for MND.”

My Name’5 Doddie Foundation has said it is also committed to helping those affected by motor neurone disease and has given a total of £350,000 to MND Scotland and MND Association. This is distributed as grants on behalf of the foundation and helps pay for adaptations to homes and funds respite care for carers.