Successful business and family man Ross Maclean has a tough fight on his hands.
At nearly 80, he is battling a debilitating disease for which there is currently no adequate treatments or cure — Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
True to his fighting spirit and to help the cause of research into the condition, Mr Maclean and his family have joined forces with the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at The University of Queensland to raise funds for the appointment of a research scientist dedicated to studying MND.
Mr Maclean’s company, the Index Group of Companies, will fundraise $100,000 a year for three years for The Ross Maclean Fellowship, launched this month.
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay will accept the first instalment towards the Fellowship from one of Mr Maclean’s sons, Jeff, during a cheque presentation ceremony on Wednesday, July 21.
The Fellowship idea grew from Mr Maclean’s meeting with Professor Perry Bartlett, Foundation Chair in Molecular Neuroscience and QBI inaugural Director.
Professor Bartlett said the Fellowship would become one of the most prestigious fellowships in the neuroscientific field especially in the search to uncover the mechanisms regulating motor neurone cell death.
The liaison between the University and the Maclean family was facilitated by the University’s Development Office (DO).
MND, also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Maladie de Charcot, was first described by Charcot, a French neurologist, in the 1860s.
It affects more than 350,000 people worldwide, with a mortality rate of 100,000 people each year. In Australia, one person dies of MND every day.
MND involves a deterioration of the nerve cells, or neurones, controlling key muscles including those in the trunk and limbs and those controlling speech, swallowing and breathing, while leaving the brain unaffected.
Mr Maclean was diagnosed with MND five years’ ago after experiencing numbness in some of his limbs followed by a gradual deterioration in fine motor skills such as using keys, writing and turning on switches.
Jeff Maclean said his father had delayed telling his family so as not to unduly worry them. Mr Maclean Senior and his wife, Daphne, have six grandchildren (between the ages of 15 and 24) through Jeff and his older brother Craig, Deputy Principal of Bundaberg State High School.
Mr Maclean Senior was also something of a veteran at fighting illness. As a child, he had battled osteo which left him with a slight limp for life.
When diagnosed with MND, he was Managing Director of the Index Group of Companies, one of Queensland’s top 400 privately owned companies and long-time sponsor of the Souths Rugby Club.
Jeff said even though his father was now completely immobile and connected to a ventilator 24-hours-a-day, he remained very mentally alert and hopeful for a cure or treatment for MND in the years to come.
Media contact: Shirley Glaister at UQ Communications (telephone: 07 3365 2479, email: s.glaister@uq.edu.au).
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