April updates
I need to find more ways of saying that it’s been an exciting few weeks, but the truth is that every week working on the study is exciting.
We had a great Instagram live hosted by Roxy Murray of the Sick and Sickening podcast. We covered some live questions about the study and talked about some common themes that have cropped up in our conversations with the steering group. We focussed on the motivation for the study, how we make sure your data are safe, and what you’ll get out of participating. You can watch it here:
We’ve also had the opportunity to chat with some local groups of people with MS to hear their thoughts about the study. We enjoyed dropping in on the Leeds MS Society coffee morning and a London-based peer support group last week. We’ve got some exciting similar events lined up with AsianMS, the Jewish Care MS Support group, and an MS Society Research zoom evening. If you’re involved with an MS group and you’d like to discuss the study with us, please drop us a line and we’d be delighted to come along.
We’ve also ‘gone live’ South of the river at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. The brilliant research team there are going to help broaden the scope of the study. That takes us up to four active sites now, with recruitment already underway at the Royal London Hospital (Whitechapel), Leeds Hospitals NHS Trust, and Queens Hospital (Romford). There are several more in the pipeline, so watch this space. As always if you’re a neurologist or you’re involved in the care of people with MS please reach out - we’re always looking for enthusiastic teams to work with, and this kind of research can only be done well at scale. We’re at adams_study@qmul.ac.uk.
This week we recruited our 222nd participant and sent our our 200th saliva kit. We’re busy processing the first batch of genetic samples and hope to have some early data by the summer. We’re presenting some initial results at the Association of British Neurologists Conference in May and will send round the poster when it’s done.
None of this would be possible without the generosity of the participants, our steering group, and our funders. Thank you again to everyone who’s taken the time to sign up, and please do spread the word so we can get some clear answers to this important question.
For more info please look at the website, share the link (https://app.mantal.co.uk/adams), and get in touch with us at adams_study@qmul.ac.uk.
Thanks for reading
Ben and the ADAMS team