We were delighted to welcome a group of our most dedicated supporters to Moredun at a recent event to celebrate Moredun’s centenary. Between them these people represent all sides of the battle against the disease, including fundraisers, volunteers and research scientists.

Grass sickness has been of scientific interest to Moredun from its very early days, and remains so today. Dr Kathy Geyer joined Moreden in 2021 as part of the Centenary Research Fellowship, which aims to attract some of the very best early year scientists to ensure research remains at the cutting edge.

One of Kathy’s very tasks has been to set up a new EGS biobank to collect the samples from grass sickness cases so badly needed to investigate the disease, and we are very grateful to Prof Milne for her assistance with this. Owners of grass sickness cases can help both by donating samples from affected horses, and also by completing our case survey. Together these elements of the biobank will help us shed light on both the causal agents and risk factors associated with the disease.

Yvonne Mclean and Sylvia Ormiston will be familiar names to many of you. Yvonne started raising funds for grass sickness research after successfully nursing her horse Mal through grass sickness, and has gone on to raise over £70,000. Our recent PhD studentship has been dedicated to the Ross-shire FUNdraising Group. Sylvia Ormiston of the Balmoral Highland Pony Stud has been instrumental in helping get the current longitudinal studies, which form part of the biobank, off the ground, following the loss of some of the Queen’s ponies at Balmoral.

For more information about how you can help the biobank please visit https://www.grasssickness.org.uk/biobank/