A record $30 million in research grants has been announced to support the fight against motor neurone disease (MND), honouring the enduring legacy of AFL icon and former Australian of the Year Neale Daniher, who died in May this year after living with the condition for 13 years. The funding, distributed across 69 research projects nationwide, has been made possible by Fight MND, the organisation Daniher co-founded in 2014, with the record-breaking amount reflecting the surge in donations that followed his passing.
Research Projects Spanning the Country
The grants are supporting a diverse range of investigations into MND, with teams in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne each tackling the disease from different scientific angles.
In Sydney, Associate Professor Emma Devenney will lead research into the relationship between disturbed sleep and the earliest stages of MND. Governor-General Sam Mostyn, herself a participant in the Big Freeze fundraising event, met with Devenney to hear about the work firsthand.
"We're really looking to see how can we identify this disease before people develop symptoms that are irreversible," Devenney said.
Mostyn expressed confidence that the cumulative fundraising effort would one day yield a breakthrough. "I think it's in Neale's memory that one day we'll be able to say that the money raised by good people all around the country, great communities, will find that cure," she said.
In Brisbane, Daniher's widow Jan Daniher visited Associate Professor Shyuan Ngo, whose research will focus on the signals that cells use to communicate with one another. The aim is to identify which signals are driving the progression of MND so they can be specifically targeted.
"We're trying to figure out whether or not we can pick out the signals that are causing MND, so that we can target those signals," Ngo said.
Eye Disease Drugs Offer Unexpected Promise for MND
One of the more unexpected avenues being explored is at the Centre for Eye Research in East Melbourne, where Professor Peter Williams is investigating whether drugs developed to treat glaucoma could also prove effective against MND.
The logic centres on the drugs' ability to halt optic nerve degeneration, a mechanism that researchers believe may translate to MND treatment. Former Melbourne Demons captain Nathan Jones, who was coached by Neale Daniher during his career, visited the centre and expressed enthusiasm about the potential.
"We've been developing drugs for glaucoma to stop optic nerve degeneration, and the drugs that we're developing here should be effective in MND as well," Williams said.
"This could be a path forward, which is so exciting," Jones added.
Jan Daniher on Her Husband's Legacy
Throughout the funding announcements, Jan Daniher has been a visible presence, engaging with the researchers her husband's organisation is now supporting. Reflecting on what Neale would have made of the latest developments, she said he would be watching closely.
"I think he'd be up there with a big smile on his face, but he'd be watching every step of the way, don't worry about that," she said.
Fight MND was established by Daniher in 2014 following his own diagnosis, and has since grown into one of Australia's most prominent disease research fundraisers. The record $30 million funding round signals that the movement he built has only gathered momentum in the wake of his death, with researchers now working across the country to turn that goodwill into tangible medical progress. The work on early detection, cellular signalling and repurposed drug therapies represents a broad and ambitious front in the effort to find an effective treatment, and ultimately a cure, for MND.
