Translating advances in our understanding of basic disease mechanisms into therapeutic benefits in the common neurodegenerative diseases is a major and growing area of research in the Department. The BioMOx study uses connectivity based MRI and proteomics to study longitudinal changes in patients with motor neuron disease and is the largest longitudinal biomarker programme in MND. Improved pre-clinical models (mice and stem cell derived) are being developed in order to identify the earliest changes in the disease. Very similar approaches are at the core of the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre, in which the Department is a major partner. More than 1500 subjects are being recruited for studies including clinical natural history, whole exome sequencing, serum/CSF proteomics, MRI imaging and fibroblast culture for derivation of induced pluripotent stem cells and neuropathology.