Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge craze? It turns out that money west Londoners raised from it has lead to an 'important' medical breakthrough.

Plenty of people from across west London, including former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho , got involved in the campaign which encouraged people to pour a bucket of ice cold water over their heads in order to get donations from their friends.

They then nominated people themselves to undertake the challenge, all in a bid to raise money for the ALS association.

Members of Brent Council's Executive take part in the challenge

And now, the medical researchers who were given that cash have discovered a new gene that is linked to motor neurone disease.

The NEK1 gene could help scientists develop new treatments for patients with motor neurone disease - also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Motor neurone disease is a rare condition that around 5,000 people in the UK are living with at any one time, which progressively damages parts of the nervous system, leading to muscle weakness, often with visible wasting.

The ALS association raised around £80million with some of the cash going towards Project MinE, which is an international study to sequence the genomes of at least 15,000 people with ALS.

Scientists hope that the NEK1 gene will help them understand how the disease takes hold of a person's nervous system.