GW4 Epilepsy Community

Epilepsy is the most common primary neurological disorder worldwide: 10% of the population will experience a seizure during their life and around 1 in every 100 people has epilepsy (600,000 UK and 50 million sufferers worldwide). It is extremely debilitating and causes more than 1000 preventable UK deaths per year.  The GW4 Epilepsy Community was formed via a Generator Award in 2022 and have since continued their research analysing human epileptic brain tissue samples and genetic variants of fly neurons to enable a better understanding of epilepsy, as well as working closely with lived experience groups and collaborating with a start-up company to develop a ground-breaking diagnostic device.  This Development Award will facilitate a series of workshops to enable the research community to strengthen and develop its existing work, target funding, and address the lack of fundamental understanding of epilepsies.  Long-term key objectives are to improve diagnosis, improve screening for therapies, and develop better devices for diagnosis, monitoring and treatment. The community will host a development meeting in February 2025, a grant progress meeting in April 2025 and a writing retreat in July 2025.