Motor neuron disease: a link to cholesterol

Motor neuron disease, in its many different forms, affects about one in every 2,500 people in the UK - it’s incurable, and can be debilitating, as over time you lose control of parts of your body. But now scientists from the University of Exeter have a new theory about how seemingly different forms of the disease have the same underlying cause. Based on decades of their own research, they’ve found something in common between thirteen motor neuron disease genes: and the link is, surprisingly, cholesterol. It’s a kind of Eureka moment for researching this condition, and might open the door to the first ever treatments that stop it progressing. Phil Sansom sat down with authors Andrew Crosby and Emma Baple to hear about it…