AIBN researcher Dr Sophia Luikinga is following in the footsteps of her MND research mentor after winning a prestigious fellowship to address the neurodegenerative condition from a new angle.
Dr Luikinga has been named the 2025 Scott Sullivan Research Fellow by MND Australia and the MND and Me Foundation, and will be supported over the next three years to explore a theory that could inform treatment and management options for the disease.
The Scott Sullivan Fellowship is named in honour of Queensland MND campaigner Scott Sullivan, who passed away in 2014.
The $500,000 prize will allow Dr Luikinga to further her work in the MND research team led by AIBN Associate Professor Shyuan Ngo, who was the inaugural winner of the Scott Sullivan Fellowship in 2015.
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Sign up todayThrough her fellowship she will explore a hypothesis that MND patients have in their bodies a unique set of lipids - or fat molecules – that could be useful biomarkers for the disease and a guide for future treatments.
The study involves establishing a way to definitively measure the levels of specific fat molecules in blood using samples from biobanks, but will also recruit people living with MND to test if the levels of fat molecules can be tracked over time.
“Once this research is complete, I hope that this can help clinicians assess if drugs have a desired effect, and how disease is progressing,” Dr Luikinga says.
“This will in turn help with drug development and treatment strategies in the future.”
Dr Luikinga is originally from the Netherlands and began her research into in MND and lipid metabolism at The Florey Institute in Melbourne in 2019.
She said joining Associate Professor Ngo’s lab was the ideal opportunity to focus on clinical research because of the close connection between the team and the community of people living with MND.
“Working with people who have that lived experience is a crucial part of what we do,” Dr Luikinga said.
“These are incredibly inspiring people, and they give us extra motivation to find the answers we need.”
More than 2000 Australians are currently living with MND. People with the condition gradually lose the ability to control muscle and movement, and to breathe on their own.
Currently, there is no cure or effective treatment.
