Introduction
At FutureNeuro, we are on a mission to transform the patient journey through research that prioritises the needs of both patients and the healthcare professionals dedicated to their care. We develop diagnostic tools, therapies to correct damaged brain networks, and technologies empowering patients to monitor their own health and well-being which are linked to Ireland’s national imaging, diagnostics, and eHealth infrastructure.
As a collaborative force, spanning multiple disciplines and institutions, we partner with industry leaders, patient organisations, and clinical networks to bring about transformative changes, not only in Ireland but globally. Our research spans preclinical and clinical realms, addressing key challenges in neurological disorder diagnosis, leveraging genomics for precision therapy, advancing precision treatments, and unlocking insights from clinical datasets through rapid data science progress.
Originally centred on epilepsy and ALS, our research has expanded to encompass a broader spectrum of chronic brain diseases and rare neurodegenerative conditions. ALS, in particular, has served as a model, offering insights into shared mechanisms, clinical pathways, and patient experiences. Leveraging cutting-edge technology platforms and a national clinical network, has allowed us to broaden our impact to include other neurological, psychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Parkinson’s, MS, autism, psychosis, and the significant comorbid aspects of these conditions.
Join us in shaping the future of neurological healthcare, where discovery meets compassion, and innovation empowers those affected by neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions.
Disease Areas
Our research program, initially centred on diagnostics, therapeutics, and eHealth for epilepsy and ALS, now extends beyond these boundaries. We are advancing research in neurodevelopmental disorders, multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease (PD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and addressing significant comorbid aspects, including psychosis and mental health. Explore our research activities for each disease:
Epilepsy
Our work focuses on the causes, diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, including novel care pathways that integrate digital solutions. In particular, understanding genetic contributions to epilepsy and drug response, the identification of molecular, imaging and electrophysiological biomarkers of epilepsy, and driving next-generation therapeutics development that use advanced molecular designs to adjust brain function to reduce hyperexcitability and stop seizures. We leverage the power of AI to analyse large patient data sets to identify predictors of treatment response, with a view to informing safer and more effective treatment pathways.
Rare Neurogenetic Disorders
We have multiple projects focused on rare neurogenetic disorders. These include Dravet, CDKL5 and Rett syndromes. Each are characterised by pathogenic variants in critical genes for brain development and function and share in common serious drug-resistant epilepsy as well as other life-limiting disabilities. Our preclinical and clinical research is exploring the underlying mechanisms of these conditions, identifying potential biomarkers and developing innovative new therapeutics including gene therapy approaches. We are developing adult (EAGER) and paediatric (CINDI) patient registers to match patients for clinical trials and be prepared as new genetic discoveries are made.
Motor Neuron Disease
Our ALS/MND research explores novel biomarkers of disease onset including genetic variants, neurophysiology, imaging, non-coding RNA and stem cell modelling to inform disease diagnostics along with the integration of clinical phenotype to develop more precise stratification tools for clinical trials.
Multiple sclerosis
Our research focuses on developing new technologies, including MRI and blood-based assays, to track disease progression, and an information and communication technology (ICT) platform to capture the patient journey in MS as part of the PRECISION-ALS study. Additionally, we're investigating the immune system's response to Epstein Barr virus (EBV) to develop outcome measures for future anti-viral or vaccine trials. We also aim to understand how targeting microRNAs and metabolic pathways in glial cells can influence disease progression and demyelination, with the goal of promoting neuronal repair and remyelination.
Neurodevelopmental Conditions
Our research focuses on discovering the genomic basis of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions in family and population-based studies, thus strengthening the mental health focus within FutureNeuro.
Parkinson’s Disease
Our research harnesses our expertise in spatial transcriptomics, spatial proteomics, data science and systems modelling, single cell imaging and high content imaging to investigate the role of mitochondrial dysfunction and ion channels in Parkinson’s disease.
Traumatic Brain Injury
One research focuses on tight junctions located between microvascular endothelial cells of the blood brain and inner blood retina barriers (BBB/iBRB) and how these barriers function in health and disease. Our team aims to develop technologies to address an unmet clinical need for a range of neural conditions that currently have limited forms of therapeutic intervention including traumatic brain injury (TBI) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The team uses advanced medical imaging and wearable technology to examine the impact of repetitive head trauma on the brain.
Psychosis
Our research focuses on developing new biomarkers to identify those at high risk of psychotic disorders and to predict the clinical outcome in those at risk of psychosis and following first episodes of psychosis.
Mental Health
Our research focuses on developing new digital methods for mental health risk identification and development of digital interventions, symptom tracking and psychoeducational programmes.
Our Impact
Our primary goal is to reduce the substantial burden of neurological, psychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders on both healthcare and society. Through our work, we aim to achieve tangible impacts in economic, health, policy, skills, and societal domains. Our research has contributed to the development of new products, enhancements in healthcare system efficiency, and collaborative data science research fostering resilience in the Irish economy. Explore some examples of our impact below:
Driving improvements in health outcomes, via faster and more accurate genomic diagnosis in Irish hospitals: Our researchers and clinicians are spearheading efforts to integrate genomic diagnostics into clinical practice in Ireland. To date, we have enabled the diagnosis of over 1,000 patients, with 85 epilepsy patients receiving a positive molecular diagnosis. Uncovering the cause not only benefits patients and families significantly but has also paved the way for targeted treatments and innovative, off-label clinical trials.
Participating in Europe-wide projects to support discovery of genetic causes of disease: Our expertise and capacity in genomic diagnosis has encouraged Irish participation in the European Commission’s 1+ Million Genomes Initiative. The goal is to securely analyze Irish genomes alongside datasets from other European countries. This collaborative effort can expedite the discovery of genetic disease causes and facilitate the development of much needed treatments.
Increasing Ireland’s attractiveness as a destination for clinical trials: We have established two new registers that enable the identification of participants for stratified clinical trials. The EAGER register identifies adult participants with rare monogenic epilepsy for clinical trials and the CINDI register provides a similar infrastructure for children with rare, neurogenetic conditions. And, the Precision-ALS SPOKE, in partnership with industry, is developing an international multi-modal platform to enable revolutionary ALS clinical trials.
Advancing scientific knowledge: Our discoveries, published in top-tier international journals, are shaping cutting-edge diagnostics and treatments for brain diseases. These achievements elevate Ireland’s scientific standing, reinforcing its reputation as a hub for pioneering research and attracting leading talent and industry investment. Recent high profile discoveries include the role of leaky blood vessels as a driver for brain fog associated with Long COVID (Nature Neuroscience, 2024) and the largest genetic study of epilepsy to date to discover new genetic causes (Nature Genetics, 2023).
Increasing industry investment in Irish research: Working with world-leading data science and biopharma companies, we have attracted over €4M industry investment in Irish neurological research. These collaborative programmes range from progressing early-stage pre-clinical therapies towards clinical applications, unlocking the power of healthcare data to inform improvements in clinical care for people with epilepsy and identifying new technology for improved monitoring of seizures.
The FutureNeuro Team receiving an award at the 2022 Irish Pharma Awards.
In 2022, FutureNeuro was awarded the Research and Development Achievement Award at the Irish Pharma Awards, recognising the Centre’s expanding collaborative research engagement with industry, nationally and internationally.
Leading international competitive funding bids: Since 2017, our researchers have successfully secured €16 million in competitive international funding, fueling pioneering discovery research initiatives. They play leading roles in multi-country, multi-partner consortia such as PD-Mitoquant (identifying new therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease) and PRIME (building ‘living brain implants’ that detect seizures before they occur, and trigger the pre-emptive release of therapeutic molecules).
Stimulating public and patient-led discourse to inform policy recommendations: Our patient collaborators are integral to shaping our research strategy and contributing to national neurological policy. During our Deliberative Dialogue in Neurogenomics event in September 2022, a diverse group of stakeholders generated recommendations to guide the implementation of the National Strategy for Accelerating Genetic and Genomic Medicine in Ireland.
Advancing Irish research reputation: The 2023 International Epilepsy Congress (IEC), with FutureNeuro as a lead orgainser, was hosted in Dublin. Drawing over 2,500 delegates from 100+ countries, the conference highlighted Ireland’s exceptional epilepsy research and clinical care talent to the international community.
An Taoiseach comments on the importance of FutureNeuro-led epilepsy research at the 2023 IEC.
Our Research
Our unique multi-disciplinary preclinical and clinical research addresses the major challenges in improving how we diagnose neurological disorders.
Partner with Us
Collaboration is fundamental to the success of FutureNeuro. We invite partnerships with industry, clinical and academic collaborators to address mutually-identified scientific challenges.