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Despite the fact the 75 people every day are diagnosed with epilepsy, research into the condition is severely underfunded. This needs to change. Epilepsy Research UK aims to be at the forefront of developments to control and perhaps one day even cure, epilepsy.
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Epilepsy affects over 450,000 people in the UK alone. Even with control of seizures, life for people with epilepsy can be unpredictable and restricted. However, new research offers the very real possibility of developing therapies that could help transform the lives of those affected. Epilepsy Research UK identifies promising research at an early stage and provides the funding that will enable researchers to take their work onto the next stage where it is of interest to major funding bodies such as the Medical Research Council. In recent years, the £834,727 we have allocated to researchers has led to 20 grants totalling £1.68 million from other funders. Put simply every pound donated to Epilepsy Research UK leads to another two pounds being allocated to research into epilepsy. To ensure that epilepsy research is vibrant in the UK we need to encourage talented scientists and clinicians to pursue a career in the field. To achieve this, we award research fellowships of £200,000 to bring the best and the brightest people into epilepsy research. Liam Gray was awarded a fellowship in 1996, whilst he was a senior registrar at the Wessex Neurological Centre in Southampton. He is now a Professor of Neurosurgery and a leading researcher and says “The fellowship was a critical foundation stone in my academic career, enabling me to undertake a protected period of post-doctoral research, upon which much of my subsequent work and collaborations have been built.”