http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/199499.php
The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic will place patients at the heart of research to improve outcomes for multiple sclerosis sufferers.
This will focus on patient-based studies to help find treatments that could slow progression of the disease, working towards the eventual aim of stopping and reversing it.
The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic is named after Ms Rowling's mother, who died of multiple sclerosis aged 45.
Work at the clinic will also provide insight into other degenerative neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and Motor Neurone Disease.
As with multiple sclerosis, these disorders are progressive and incurable.
The clinic follows on from the setting up of the Centre for Multiple Sclerosis Research at the University in 2007, which has also received support from the Harry Potter author.
Ms Rowling said: "I cannot think of anything more important, or of more lasting value, than to help the university attract world-class minds in the field of neuroregeneration, to build on its long and illustrious history of medical research and, ultimately, to seek a cure for a very Scottish disease." (A full statement from J K Rowling is below.)
The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic will be based in a purpose-built facility within the University's Chancellor's Building, next to the city's Royal Infirmary and within Edinburgh BioQuarter at Little France. This development will build on Edinburgh's strong track records in patient-focused clinical research on neurological disorders and in imaging of the brain and nervous system.
It is the single largest donation that the author has given to a charitable cause. This is also the largest single donation that the University has received.
Clinical academics will work closely with a critical mass of researchers studying neurodegenerative disorders already based at the University.
This will include expertise from the Centre for Multiple Sclerosis Research, the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, the Centre for Neuroregeneration, Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neuron Disease Research and Division of Clinical Sciences.
There will also be a major emphasis on training the next generation of researchers.
