The BeLong Study - Using MRI to research MND

Dr Thomas Shaw is the winner of MND Research Australia’s Bill Gole Post-Doctoral Fellowship 2021 -2023 for his project titled ‘Ultra-High Field MRI of Spinal Cord Tissue in Motor Neurone Diseases’. We recently caught up with him to learn more about his innovative research project.

Dr Shaw (or Tom) is an enthusiastic researcher who completed his PhD at the University of Queensland over a year ago and has a particular interest in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Tom’s grant from MND Research Australia is allowing him to work on The BeLong Study which he explained is looking at “the biomarkers of long surviving Motor Neurone Disease and we are looking at spine and brain MRI markers for people with MND. That’s for people with any type of MND.”

“What we want to do is find out what changes within the patients over time that they have the disease and testing between the different types of people with MND, so people with ALS, people with PMA, with PLS, everyone along that spectrum.” he added.

Information technology and electrical engineering doesn’t sound like your typical clinical research environment. We asked Tom about the support he’s had for his project and he said “I did my PhD on magnetic resonance imaging technology, so a lot of medical imaging and predominantly in my PhD I worked with MND data sets, so people with MND, looking at a part of the brain called the hippocampus which is involved in memory in MND patients and looking at size and shape differences. So I’ve always had an interest in MND data, but actually working with the patients I got involved with through Derik Steyn and Shu (Shyuan Ngo) at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and they introduced me to Rob Henderson and all of the clinical team and from that we were able to collaborate very nicely and I’ve been integrated into the clinical team nicely now which is great.”

Many people get anxious at the thought of going into an MRI machine, but Tom let us know that “It’s a lot different to having a clinical MRI, the reason we say that is when you have a clinical MRI you have a 45 minute slot so things have to be quick. With us it’s a bit more relaxed. We take plenty of time. We book out for two hours. We make sure you’re comfortable. We give you all of the padding. It’s like being in a big bed. We put a movie on as well which they don’t really do in clinical scans cause it takes a lot of time. I would say that it’s definitely claustrophobic and there’s nothing we can do about that. If you have claustrophobia we advise you not to come into the scanner. If you’re feeling anxious about it we do take every single step to make you feel a lot better. I think the movie opens up your field of view so you can actually see things in front of you instead of being in a tight confined space.”

We asked Tom what made him get into the field of research and he told us “I started out just not knowing what I wanted to do at uni and then I slowly found that I was interested in magnetic resonance technology. I was really interested in that aspect of the brain. Imaging the brain. I always was so interested in how the brain works and how it looks and changes.”

He went on to add “I was interested in a lot of different diseases at the time. I was interested in Alzheimer’s research for a long time and just the way that your brain changes and how the brain looks on the scanner and how we can map that over time. I was always interested in mapping the brain I guess. MRI is just a fantastic way of doing it. It’s non-invasive, it’s fun, it’s fast, it’s interesting. I found myself more and more driven to go towards QBI (Queensland Brain Institute) and CAI (Centre for Advanced Imaging) to work with MRI and that’s what I did and I ended up doing my honors in MRI and then my masters and then my PhD.”

He continued, “MRI has always been the thing that was interesting and then MND became a real interest, probably two years ago when I met Derik and Shu and we had this great professional relationship straight off the bat where they said ‘we’re interested in finding a cure for MND and we’re always interested in people who are willing to help us do that and willing to work with us’ and I said ‘Great! That sounds like a great working relationship’ and ever since then it’s been fantastic.”

Tom is passionate about MND research and we asked what is it about MND research in particular that interests him so much. He responded “I think the patients is the main thing. I can’t say that enough. We’re testing at the moment and I’ve been meeting patients for just over a year since I’ve been going to the research visits and the clinical visits with Rob and just meeting the patients, getting to know them, getting to know their progression, where they are. They’re just normal people at the end of the day. They’re interested in our research as well and they’re always willing to help and I think that’s really important. A lot of the time we go to a research meeting and they’ll go along and say ‘I want to know what’s going on with me and I want to know what’s going on with the latest research?’ The thing that always gets me is when people say ‘you know, it’s probably not going to help me, but it might help somebody in the future.’ And that’s heartening in a way, it’s nice. It really motivates you a lot.”

We often hear that while many people with MND are interested in participating in research studies they often can’t because of the strict criteria involved to participate, but this isn't the case with The BeLong Study. Tom told us “Two reasons why it’s called BeLong, one; because it’s biomarkers of long survivors, but also BeLong because we wanted people to be involved. So we wanted as many different people to be involved as possible. People who might have timed out of other research, there’s a lot of research that only looks at ALS for example. Our research here specifically with BeLong is anyone with any variant of MND. We’re interested in everyone. There are a number of other research opportunities at The University of Queensland including research conducted by Fleur Garton, Derik Steyn, Shu Ngo, and Rob Henderson that require a blood sample. Our research is just an MRI. The main thing for MRI is that you don’t have too much metal in your body that can cause problems. Generally, we haven’t had to screen anyone out yet. As long as we know what the piece of metal is made of. A lot of people have titanium plates, and that’s fine because titanium doesn’t affect the magnet or they might have a stent and we just can’t scan them for more than 15 minutes at a time. Claustrophobia is probably the main thing. If you can’t stand a confined space for any period of time, it’s not going to work, but aside from that, everyone’s welcome.”

We asked Tom some questions to learn a little more about who he is outside of his research hours and he told us that he has two dachshunds, Helen and Dawson, and that he enjoys going to the gym, and is looking forward to a trip to Malta soon.“

He went on further to add that “It's weird because work is kind of a hobby as well. Academia is a relaxing and rewarding job because you can work when you want to and if you’re reading to explore something new, it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like work when you have a deadline and have to finish a PowerPoint or whatever but you know, if you’re sitting down and you ask yourself ‘I wonder why that happens?’ and you sit down and start Googling or you start looking in the library or something, and you start reading through different reasons, and you just go into a rabbit hole of why a certain thing occurs because of a certain process in the body and that feels fun. I end up doing that quite a bit.”

If you’d like more information about how to participate in The BeLong Study, contact Dr Thomas Shaw by calling 0433 673 199 or email t.shaw@uq.edu.au.

Tom with the Tesla 7 MRI machine used for MND research