Alert Level One update from Dr. Emma Scotter about genetics screening and MRI scanning studies at Auckland University

To all participants and potential participants in our University of Auckland/ADHB MND genetics screening and MRI scanning studies, we hope you are well and thank you for your patience during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Now that we are at Level One, we have resumed study enrolment and sample collection and imaging for both our MND genetics and MRI scanning studies. 

We have now switched to at-home saliva collection for our genetics study. For those with familial MND who consent to contributing a skin fibroblast sample, we will still ask you to visit a nearby clinician at a convenient time, to have a skin biopsy. MRI scanning will continue onsite at the University of Auckland.  

For those waiting on genetic results, we have word from the University of Queensland that they have now resumed MND genetic testing. Please know that returning these results is a very high priority for us and we will do so as soon as we are able. 

For those wanting to lodge their interest in either or both of these studies, please feel free to contact me at. For those with MND, you will need to be registered with the MND patient registry to participate. https://mnd.org.nz/registry/. 

As always, thank you for your interest and help with our studies, we can’t do it without you.