AUTHOR JK Rowling has donated £10 million to set up a clinic to research treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS), the degenerative disease that killed her mother at the age of 45.
The Anne Rowling regenerative neurology clinic, which will be based at the University of Edinburgh, will carry out research into a range of degenerative neurological conditions and diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntingdon’s and motor neurone disease.
The Harry Potterauthor has championed research into multiple sclerosis. In 2006 it emerged that she had given a "major" but undisclosed gift to Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland towards setting up the university's centre for multiple sclerosis research.
She resigned as patron of the society last year after a dispute over reorganisation.
The university said the £10 million was the largest direct donation Rowling had made to a charitable cause, and the biggest single gift the university had ever received. “I have just turned 45, the age at which my mother, Anne, died of complications related to her MS,” the writer said.
The new clinic will help develop and test new treatments that could slow, stop and eventually reverse degenerative diseases. – ( Guardianservice)