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Untangling MND: How fat metabolism could hold new clues to MND

Published: 15 December 2025

When PhD student Clare Low joined the Motor Neurone Disease Laboratory at The Florey, she stepped into a world of complex questions with few easy answers.

“I started my journey in neuroscience at the University of Melbourne,” Clare says, “and during my honours year, I worked on dementia research. But when I joined the MND lab, I realised how much there was still to uncover about what makes motor neurons so vulnerable. That challenge really inspired me.”

Yi Lee Clare Low, The Florey, University of Melbourne

Supported by a Melbourne Research Scholarship and the MND Australia PhD Top-up Scholarship, Clare’s project — Untangling the Role of Lipid Droplets in Motor Neurone Disease — explores how changes in the way cells handle fats and energy may influence neurodegeneration and inflammation in MND.

“Traditionally, research has focused on protein aggregation and inflammation," she explains. “But there’s growing recognition that metabolic dysfunction, how our cells process and store energy, could play a major role in MND.”

At the centre of her research are lipid droplets, tiny fat-storing structures within cells that help regulate energy, stress responses, and inflammation.

"These droplets act as both energy reserves and protective buffers,” Clare says. “We’re investigating how disruptions in their formation and function might make motor neurons more susceptible to degeneration.”

To achieve this, Clare employs a combination of molecular imaging and model systems, including human neuronal models, patient-derived stem cells, and mouse models of MND, to investigate how lipid metabolism is altered under stress and in the presence of MND-linked mutations.

A recent collaboration with researchers in Canada allowed her to learn and bring back new techniques rarely used in MND research, expanding what’s possible within the field.

“It’s exciting to bridge the gap between fundamental cell biology and MND research”

“By understanding how fat metabolism interacts with inflammation and cell stress, we can start to identify new pathways that explain why motor neurons fail, and hopefully reveal targets for therapies that slow or prevent that process.”

Although Clare doesn’t work directly with patients, she often meets people living with MND and their families who visit The Florey’s laboratories. “Those encounters are incredibly grounding,” she says.

“There’s a deep sense of urgency in this field, every small discover could one day make a real difference."

Clare’s work, and the scholarships that support it, reflect the growing importance of nurturing early-career researchers in Australia’s MND community.

“Funding from MND Australia makes this kind of work possible,” she says. “It gives us the freedom to test new ideas, learn from international peers, and push the boundaries of what we know. Every advance, however small, brings us closer to better treatments and, hopefully, a cure.”

Read more stories about life with MND and the research to develop new treatments in the latest edition of Momentum.