The Sheffield Institute for Motor Neurone Disease is now built.

Professor Pamela Shaw and her team from the Sheffield Medical School have moved into the new building which was inaugurated by the Queen on 18 November 2010.

The new building is called "the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience,-SITraN". It is a world-class research centre lead by Professor Pam Shaw, head of Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield, who, with her team of nearly 100 international scientists will work towards solving the mysteries of   MND - one of the world's most under researched diseases for which currently there is no cure and very low options of treatment.  

There are 40,000 patients who suffer from MND in Europe, 6,000 in the UK alone.   The life expectancy of a patient is about three years and only ten per cent live over five years from diagnosis. A key feature of this condition is the speed of the progression of the symptoms.

Four years ago a team of dedicated Patrons set up the Sheffield Institute Foundation for MND (SIF) With the help of the University of Sheffield they have raised £16million .

SITraN will more than double the current research capacity in Sheffield and will allow new and existing programmes of research to be developed and extended. It will bring laboratory studies into the clinic where new research will be applied to the patients after being cleared by the appropriate committee of safety of medicine (MHRA).

Professor Pamela Shaw, MBBS MD FRCP FMedSci, commented:

"MND is one of the world's 'orphan diseases'. For too long it has been neglected and received inadequate research funding. The opening of the Institute will hopefully be a step towards advancing our understanding of the disease and making life easier for sufferers.

"Having assembled the building, research equipment and a world class research team, we now need to work on raising the funds for the programmes of research within SITraN and we intend to make our Patrons and supporters proud of their investment."