The Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association, based in Notre Dame Mews in Northampton town centre, has announced it will recruit patients to see if lithium can cure the condition.

It will then jointly fund a £1m clinical trial with the Department of Health, using recently-expanded NHS research facilities.

Belinda Cupid, a research manager at the MND association, said the patient association was very excited by the potential finding of the trials.

She said: "It's a very cheap drug and it's pence per tablet, so if it is proven to be beneficial it is not going to cost the NHS a lot of money.

"Patients are going to be very excited about this. People with MND know they have a terminal disease so they invest a good deal of hope in new research.

"There is already a lot of talk about it on the internet and in chat rooms. We are also excited because it means that, to a certain extent, we are more in control of our own destiny."

The possible positive effects of lithium were revealed in February, when Italian researchers published the results of a small trial which showed none of 16 MND patients given lithium died over a 15 month period, compared to eight out of 28 people from a comparable group.

Lithium carbonate cannot be patented, so is consequently very cheap. It has been a treatment for both bipolar disorder and depression for about 50 years.

Although there are only 29 patients from Northamptonshire registered with the MND Association, there are about 5,000 people living with the disease across the country.

Colin Blakemore, president of the MND Association, said the Italian study results were not definitive but added that the potential for lithium could be huge.

He said: "If you read the paper optimistically, it might be taken to mean that lithium literally cures this disease."

Neuorologists at MND Association care centres will start to put 200 appropriate patients forward early next year.

The trials will then start soon afterwards, probably with patients recently diagnosed, and will take about 18 months.

n PROFESSOR Colin Blakemore, President of the Northampton-based Motor Neurone Disease Association, and Science Minister Lord Drayson have opened the 19th International Symposium on MND.

This is the world's pre-eminent scientific meeting for research into the disease, attracting more than 800 researchers and clinicians from around the world.

This year the symposium has come home to England in Birmingham, where it first began 19 years ago, with just 40 delegates in Solihull.