We're supporting 13 new research projects

12 September 2025

We’re investing £2 million in 13 new research projects to help improve the lives of people with muscle wasting and weakening conditions. From setting up new clinics and using virtual reality in therapy, to exploring the earliest changes, our scientists are working to answer the questions that matter most. This year’s new projects will:

Understand what causes muscle weakness and how damage spreads in rare conditions like VCP-associated multisystem proteinopathy
Set up a new clinic in Northern Ireland for people who don’t yet have a genetic diagnosis
Find out how muscle damage happens in FSHD and develop better ways to discover and test new treatments
Learn how Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) starts, so we can try to treat it earlier, and develop a new triple-action treatment for DMD
Study how children with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) grow and develop after being diagnosed at birth
Use virtual reality to make physiotherapy more fun and engaging
Collect important information about rare myopathies to understand why symptoms can be so different from person to person
Explore new ways to correct gene changes that cause muscle-wasting conditions
Discover what happens in the body in myotonic dystrophy

And because tomorrow’s discoveries depend on today’s students, we’re doubling our support for PhD researchers. They are the future of progress, and their work will help unlock the next wave of hope for our community.