St Andrews Researcher wins the 7th International Medicine PG Award

Senior Lecturer (School of Psychology and Neuroscience), Dr Gareth Miles has won the 7th International Medicine PG award.   The award given by the Paulo Gontijo Institute supports the research of young researchers to promote the cure of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Dr. Miles is Co-Director of the Institute of Behavioral and Neural Sciences at the University of St. Andrews and partner member of the Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research at the University of Edinburgh in the UK."My lab investigates how motor neurons affected by ALS lose the ability to generate the electrical signals required to make muscles contract due to changes in specialised proteins called ion channels. This work highlights new targets that could lead to new treatments for ALS."

The International Medicine PG Award is recognised by the international scientific community, and its partners the International Alliance of ALS, Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) and the European Community for Research for the Cure of ALS (ENCALS). Dr Miles will receive $20,000 and a gold medal during the 25th International Symposium on ALS/MND to be held in Orlando (USA) in December.

[Press Release]
Research Publication: 
A.C. Devlin, K. Burr, S. Borooah, J. D. Foster, E. M. Cleary, I. Geti, L. Vallier, C. E. Shaw, S. Chandran and G. B. Miles (2015). Human iPSC-derived motoneurons harbouring TARDBP or C9ORF72 ALS mutations are dysfunctional despite maintaining viability. Nature Communications, 6:5999 doi:10.1038/ncomms6999