In this issue:

Bring Your Bear 2007 is great success

Congratulations and a huge thank you to everyone who has taken part in this year’s Bring Your Bear fundraising event. Hundreds of nurseries, schools and organisations across the country have joined in so far, with many more yet to participate.

Dupuytren’s disease

Grantholder: Dr Christina Jerosch-Herold, University of East Anglia. Grant value: £174,056

Easing the pain of spinal fractures

Osteoporosis and the bone fractures it causes often mean unremitting pain and misery to those affected. Moira Wigglesworth explains how the condition has drastically affected her life, and we look at an Action Medical Research funded study into vertebroplasty — a revolutionary treatment for spinal fractures.

Enzyme link to tendon trouble

A damaged tendon can cause real pain and weeks of misery — just ask anyone who has ever suffered this. The usual answer is painkillers and rest, but getting better can take a very long time.

Family struggle inspires fundraising success

Phil Taylor and his wife Ann are only too aware of the devastating effect that inflammatory bowel conditions can have on a person, following Ann’s diagnosis with Crohn’s disease last year. Here they explain how the disease has affected their family, and why Phil was motivated to cycle from London to Paris to raise money for our research.

Fundraising first

In 2007 Action Medical Research became one of two official charities for a new cycling event called the Etape Caledonia.This challenging hill climb event is to become the first of a series of similar events organised throughout the UK by the UK Etape series.The ride was the first cycling event to take place in the UK on closed roads.

Healthy relationships

Our Action Partners scheme, launched last November, has gone from strength to strength, with companies and individuals alike continuing to commit to a minimum of £5,000 per year for three years to help fund vital research.We take a look at what four companies have been up to.

in the news

In June, the Etape Caledonia (the UK’s first ever closed-road, mass-participation cycling event) led to national TV coverage for Action Medical Research in Scotland.

Jargon busters

TV scientist Professor Heinz Wolff explains some common — and not so common — scientific terms

Making a splash

Caroline Martin knows better than most just how important the work funded by Action Medical Research is, and has shown her support by raising more than £1,000 after successfully completing a fantastic one-mile swim.

New grants lead the way

Thirteen Action Medical Research grants have been awarded recently to fund projects ranging from work on blindness to pregnancy complications. Additionally, this year the Charity awarded four new Research Training Fellowships, in support of the UK’s most promising scientists and doctors at the start of their research careers.

New MRI scans of babies in the womb

Grant holder: Professor Mary Rutherford, Imperial College, Hammersmith Hospital, London. Grant value: £121,635

New research into motor neurone disease

Grantholder: Dr Anthony Pullen, University College London. Grant value: £84,072

Preventing brain damage in babies

An Action Medical Research study has helped open the way for potential new interventions to prevent brain damage in babies following difficult deliveries.After being awarded a prestigious Research Training Fellowship from the Charity in 2003, paediatrician Dr Giles Kendall has been working to further our understanding of brain damage in newborns.

Protecting children from meningitis and septicaemia

Grantholder: Dr Manish Sadarangani, University of Oxford. Grant value: £161,296

Small steps, big hopes

Pregnancy and birth are remarkably complex processes, fraught with the potential to fail. Every new piece of information about the mechanisms involved is part of a growing knowledge bank that doctors hope will one day help end the misery endured when pregnancies go wrong.

Tackling liver disease

Grantholder: Dr Emma Haughton, University of Birmingham. Grant value: £149,965

Taking on Huntington’s

Grantholder: Dr Ben Underwood, University of Cambridge. Grant value: £193,442

The Doctor’s notebook

Dr Chris Steele from ITV’s ‘This Morning’ writes for Touching Lives to address our health concerns — in this issue, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Understanding inflammatory bowel disease

Grantholder: Dr Rachel Cooney, University of Oxford and John Radcliffe Hospital. Grant value: £129,012

Why I support Action Medical Research

Centagenarian Bob Heys explains why he made a donation to Action Medical Research on the occasion of his 100th birthday.