Charities establish new fund for research into rare disease
Children’s medical research charity Sparks, together with Action for A-T and The A-T Society, has established a new fund for research into Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T).
A-T is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects around 20 children in the UK each year. Most children with the condition are wheelchair-bound by the age of 10 and few survive past their eighteenth birthday.
This is the first UK joint fund dedicated to A-T research. The first call for applications for grants up to £90,000, that could lead to treatments and cures for Ataxia-telangiectasia, was launched at the A-T Clinical Research Conference 2012 in Cambridge. The fund is particularly keen to receive collaborative applications between UK institutions and other international centres of excellence.
The charity expects that grants will be awarded by the end of 2012.
William Davis, chief executive of The A-T Society, said: “Together we can make a much bigger impact than we could working on our own. Collaboration is the only way to make progress with a rare and complex condition such as A-T and our three organisations are showing the way with this first UK joint fund dedicated to this research.”
www.sparks.org.uk/research/researchers/