Your donation is helping to revolutionise young lives at the University of Edinburgh. You are now part of a special group of supporters who are committed to helping students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds realise their dream of studying here. Together, you are helping to provide the best teaching and learning experience for our students and you are giving them opportunities to change lives themselves through their innovative community projects. With your support, more students can experience new cultures, new countries and new opportunities through an international trip. Thank you for your support.
With your donation, you are part of a special group of people who are helping to provide a valuable short-term international experience. Your donation is being put to use straightaway, giving students the opportunity to work, volunteer or study abroad and enhance their future employability prospects. For some students, especially from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, an international experience as part of their University of Edinburgh course would normally be out of reach. Now, thanks to your support they are able to make the most of this opportunity and gain valuable skills for their studies and future career.
With your donation, you are part of a special group of people supporting creative community student projects at the University of Edinburgh. Together, supporters like you are giving students the opportunities to make a difference in local, national or international communities through Student Experience Grants. These projects range from providing affordable, organic food to residents of Edinburgh direct from local farms to enabling access to clean, safe drinking water in communities in Morocco.
Your donation will help students who may have faced barriers in accessing higher education and those from under-represented groups develop the confidence, skills and connections to consider a range of careers through introductions to Edinburgh alumni working in an exciting range of sectors and environments. You can find out more about the Insights Programme and how your support is helping students at www.ed.ac.uk/students/careers/insights.
The Euan MacDonald Centre is a network of over 200 researchers across Scotland. Since it was established by the MacDonald family in 2007 the Centre’s research has been focused on discovering treatments, improving quality of life for people with motor neuron disease (MND) and understanding the biology of MND. It is our aim to make discoveries that will slow, stop and eventually reverse this devastating condition. Alongside our research, we are also delivering training for the next generation of MND research leaders and working with other charities and Scottish healthcare professionals to increase awareness of MND and MND research.
When J.K. Rowling’s mother, Anne, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1980s, no treatment existed. Nerve cells simply shut down one by one. Sadly, Anne Rowling passed away at the young age of 45. When J.K. Rowling herself turned 45 years old, she made a donation to the University of Edinburgh, enabling the Anne Rowling Clinic to be founded in 2010.
Today, thanks to your generous donation to the University of Edinburgh, the Anne Rowling Clinic is able to continue their vital work to help improve the lives of people with neurological conditions. With your support, the Clinic can offer patients a supportive and welcoming space that merges clinical visits with state-of-the-art research. The research targets the discovery of treatments that will slow progression of neurodegenerative diseases, with the ultimate ambition of repairing damage.
Viking Genes is a genetic and health study of 10,000 Scottish Islanders. We’ve shown that the islands have their own distinct gene pools and that some genetic variants, linked to certain cancers and heart disease, are much more common than elsewhere in the UK, sometimes over 100 X higher for particular island populations. With this knowledge it has been possible to get individuals who have a higher risk of developing these life-threatening conditions, onto early NHS screening and treatment pathways, averting cancers and saving lives.
Viking Genes continues to work to improve the medical care available to islanders and their diaspora, who inherit the same genetic high risks. Targeted population screening to find those at higher risk much sooner is a proven cost-effective way of reducing cancer and disease burden in our society. It is currently in place, for example, for all Jewish populations in England and Wales, and we are advocating that islanders should have similar provision. With your support, Viking Genes will continue to work to uncover more disease-causing genetic variants in these populations, to help deliver equitable genomic medicine to the Scottish Isles and their diasporas and improve health and well-being for these island communities.
Your support of the Chemistry Tercentenary Fund will help prospective students to pursue their dreams of studying Chemistry at Edinburgh and not be deterred by financial factors beyond their control. This fund will provide Bursaries enabling new undergraduate Chemistry students to take up their place of admission at Edinburgh leaving them free to focus on their studies.
The Kunath laboratory at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine is dedicated to finding novel treatments to slow, halt, reverse, or prevent Parkinson’s. In 2011, they published the first human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived in Scotland with a Parkinson’s genetic mutation. They are experts in converting Parkinson’s stem cells into dopamine-producing neurons to test out novel treatments for Parkinson’s. Prof Kunath has shared the Parkinson’s iPS cells with over 20 national and international labs to accelerate global efforts to find a cure for this disease. Your donation will go directly to Parkinson’s research in the Kunath laboratory and will bring us that much closer to finding a cure for this serious condition.
The Edinburgh Research into Cancer (ERIC) fund was an idea for Edinburgh-specific research into cancer causes and therapies stimulated by our wonderful colleague, Dr Andy Sims, an outstanding scientist, mentor and teacher who recently passed away, far too young, as a result of melanoma. Your donation will be used to enhance research into cancers by our scientists across the University of Edinburgh, using our unique expertise and strengths. By applying cross-disciplinary skills and bringing innovation to our work in Edinburgh, we will use the ERIC fund to inspire and enhance national and international efforts to improve understanding of cancer and devise new, kinder therapies for cancer patients in Edinburgh and beyond.
The ENDO1000 Project aims to accelerate discovery and advance data-driven research into endometriosis diagnosis and treatment. Your donation will help us to provide endometriosis sufferers with new information to empower them to make and shape decisions about their care.
