Afsaneh Shirani

Afsaneh, a physician from Tehran, will use the £4600 grant to visit Dr Emmanuelle Waubant at the University of California San Fransisco (UCSF) MS Center in the USA for four months, to work on ‘Demographic and clinical predictors of response to first-line disease modifying therapies for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis’.

Ashish Goyal

The £5000 grant will enable Ashish, a third year Masters student from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, to visit Dr Kenneth Shindler from the University of Pennsylvania, USA for three months to study ‘Viral induced inflammatory demyelination and axonal loss in the optic nerve’.

Chiara Maiorino

Chiara, a second year PhD student from the Clinical Neuroimmunology Unit, Istituto di Neurologia Sperimentale (INSPE)-San Raffaele of Milan in Italy, will use her £5000 grant to visit Prof. Owens at the Medical Biotechnology Center of Odense in Denmark for six months, to investigate the role of anti-inflammatory cytokines on innate glial responses and leukocyte infiltration in the CNS.

Fereshteh Pourabdolhossein

Fereshteh, a PhD student from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran, will use the £5000 grant to spend six months with Dr Barbara Demeneix at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, France to study ‘Migration potential of NSCs to LPC-induced demyelinated optic nerve and chiasma in response to Nogo signaling inhibition in mice’.

Lekha Pandit

Lekha, a clinical neurologist from the KS Hegde Medical Academy in Mangalore, India, will use her £3500 grant to visit the University of Cambridge, UK, where she will work with Dr Stephen Sawcer for three months on the role of HLA genes in Indian Multiple Sclerosis.

Lorna Gibson

Lorna, a medical student from the University of Edinburgh, will use her £3390 grant to travel to Boston, USA for two months where she will work with Dr Charles Guttmann from the Brigham and Women's Hospital, learning ‘Subtraction imaging in multiple sclerosis’.

Lucas Schirmer

The £5000 grant will enable Lucas, an MD from the Technische Universität in Munich, Germany, to spend three months at Imperial College in London, UK, where he will be working with Prof. Reynolds on the characterisation of Th17 and Treg cells in tissue and CSF samples of MS patients.

Lucia Lisi

With the aid of the £5000 grant, Lucia, an Italian PhD student from the Catholic University Medical School in Rome, will travel to the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA to work with Dr Feinstein on the involvement of the heat shock response in the development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

Michelle Cameron

Michelle, a neurologist from the Oregon Health and Science University in the USA, will use her £3,150 grant to visit Dr Stephen Lord in Sydney, Australia for one month to study ‘Mechanisms of Imbalance and Falls in People with MS’.

Moones Heidari

Moones, a Masters’ student from the Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran, will use her £5000 grant to investigate the role of glial activation in T cell-independent oligodendrocyte death, under the supervision of Dr Jianrong Li at Texas A&M University, USA during her five month stay.

Mukanthu Nyirenda

The £2075 grant will help Mukanthu, a Malawian PhD student from Nottingham University in the UK to visit Dr Amit Bar-O at the McGill University in Canada for two months to study ‘Effects of TLR2 ligand on the suppressive activity of T-regs from multiple sclerosis patients’.

Nielsen Lagumersindez Denis

The £5000 grant will aid Nielsen, a Masters’ student from the University of Havana, Cuba, to spend six months at the University of Edinburgh, UK to work with Dr Stephen Anderton on Oxidative stress in EAE.

Shiva Khezri

Shiva, an Iranian PhD student from the Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, will use the £5000 grant to travel to the Göttingen Medical School in Germany for six months to work with Dr Paul Lingor, studying the effect of manipulation of signalling-molecules on the symptoms and endogenous neural stem cell migration in EAE model of multiple sclerosis in mice.

Tamara Castillo

The £5000 grant will help Tamara, an MD from the Hospital Donostia, San Sebastian, Spain, to study the effects of switching to Natalizumab or immunosuppressant in MS patients with breakthrough disease on first-line disease modifying therapy. Tamara will spend six months at the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center, USA with Dr Emmanuelle Waubant.