Dr Mary-Louise Rogers (pictured), head of the Motor Neurone Disease & Neurotrophic Research Laboratory at Flinders University, will be a platform speaker at the first Australasian Motor Neurone Disease Symposium in Melbourne from 22-24 March 2018.

The conference, organised by advocacy and awareness foundation FightMND, will bring together world experts on the possible causes of Motor Neurone Disease, biomarkers, clinical trials and clinical care.

With the encouragement of FightMND, a unique urinary biomarker developed at Flinders University by Dr Rogers and colleagues is now being used in clinical trials.

The first trial is an anti-retroviral therapy, the second a therapy targeting immune cells and the third is a copper drug.

All the trials are at early stages, but Dr Rogers will be presenting evidence at the symposium that a urinary measurement has the potential to detect therapeutic effects in clinical trials, and she will also be co-chairing the symposium’s Disease Biomarker Session.

She joins such celebrated international research leaders as Professor Kevin Talbot (Oxford), Professor Kevin Eggan (Harvard), Professor Michael Benatar (Miami) and Professor Jeremy Shefner (Barrow Institute), who will also be speaking at the symposium.