Representing the community at MS Frontiers
Member of the Board of Trustees, Bayan Mohajeri, attended our biennial conference MS Frontiers in 2024. We caught up with him about his experience and his hopes for future research.
What’s your experience of MS and of research?
I used to be a chemistry research scientist, and have also worked in the business world. I was diagnosed with MS in 2020 after about a year of having symptoms and since then I’ve become involved in all sorts of organisations, including MS Together and Oceans of Hope; I’ve met so many amazing people this way.
How did you come to be at MS Frontiers?
Three years ago I was appointed to the MS Society Board of Trustees, so for MS Frontiers 2024, I was invited to give a speech opening the second day of the conference.
Originally I was involved with the MS Society as a member of the community. I worked on an article with the MS Matters magazine team when I saw an advert to join the board of trustees. I was already looking at joining a board to offer my skills and experience to an organisation, so this felt like the perfect opportunity.
I wanted to see better representation of younger people who live with MS. Having diversity in the boardroom is super important when you want to be an organisation that is there for everyone affected by MS.
I hope we’ve been able to influence the organisation and research so it’s becoming more representative of the MS community.
The conference is for researchers. But do you think people with MS were represented?
I felt that the representation of people with MS was really good. I spoke to quite a few people from our research network there and I was surprised to find out some of the researchers had loved ones with MS too.
I’ve been to conferences as a researcher in the past and I know it's really important there’s a space for researchers to just be together and collaborate. So I understood why it wasn’t open to everyone, and I felt people affected by MS were represented.
I was pleased to see a real focus from researchers in translating their work to impact for the lives of people with MS. Having people affected by MS there to give feedback and to ask “How does this research translate to me or the community?” was incredibly important.
Our Annual Lecture is available for all to attend: read a summary of 2024
What have you been thinking most about since?
I was interested in a poster I saw from the UK MS Register. In fact, I got in touch with one of the researchers since! The research talked about how education levels can impact MS progression and disability. It’s early work but I found it interesting.
I learned that keeping your brain active with social and mental stimulation can build more neurological pathways in the brain. So I’m curious to find out if the research will show this to be the case for slowing progression in MS. Or perhaps some jobs offer more reasonable adjustments which allow people to stay well for longer.
I'm intrigued by what resources like the UK MS Register can offer to researchers and how that could influence future research. The Board of Trustees is currently looking at the MS Society’s new five year strategy, so I’m excited to be involved in shaping it.
Learn more about how the UK MS Register is shaping research
What was your favourite part about MS Frontiers?
It was nice to speak to people who are so passionate about MS research. Especially the early career researchers - seeing their passion for the condition was heart-warming. The hope for the future is being fulfilled by all of these researchers.
My personal experience of research is at times it can be very personal and not super social when working in a lab. At the conference, I could see how important it was to be bringing together different research groups. People were forging collaborations and I think this is how we can accelerate research.
I came away feeling a lot more excited about the future and feeling that in our lifetimes we'll see a lot of progress in MS outcomes.
Look out for a video coming soon where Bayan will share more of his experience as a Trustee.