The centre, which is due to open next year subject to funding being finalised, will bring together scientists and other specialists from around the world with the aim of finding the causes of the condition and better therapies to hold back its progression.

Sufferers of MND lose their ability to walk, talk, eat and eventually to breathe as the disease destroys the cells that control movement.

For most people the average survival time is only two or three years and there is no cure or effective treatment for the disease, which typically affects active people aged from 50 to 70.

Until now MND research, which does not have the high profile of diseases such as cancer, has been regarded as underfunded.

Drug companies have shied away from developing therapies because of the relatively low number of patients affected.

The Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience, which will be in a new building in Dorset Street, off Glossop Road near the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, aims to change all that.

Prof Pam Shaw, Professor of Neurology at the University of Sheffield, who heads a team of 64, says the centre will attract up to 40 extra staff and students to the city.

"I feel that major strides can be made in the next five years in understanding the disease," she said.

MND covers a group of diseases caused by the death of motor neurones – the nerve cells through which the brain and spinal cord send instructions in the form of electrical impulses to the muscles.

Symptoms initially tend to be mild, such as stumbling and a difficulty holding objects, but in the advanced stages patients can become almost totally immobile.

On average the disease takes two to three years to run its course.

One sufferer is Shaun Keane, aged 39, who travels to Sheffield from his home in Leeds.

The father-of-three was healthy and very active until last May when he experienced an unusually sudden onset of the disease.

He said: "I went to bed normally and woke up the next day with twitches in my legs and arms. I thought I'd had a stroke but it was MND."

Now he struggles to walk, needs help with all aspects of everyday life and has to use a straw to drink as he has lost the strength in his hands.

Shaun's father Stuart is determined to support the new institute, which is being financed by money from the University of Sheffield, funding agencies and a group of patrons. Fundraising continues.

Mr Keane said: "As many as 1,600 people a year in the UK are dying from this disease. That is 400 people every few months. Imagine what would happen if every three months a Jumbo jet full of people died?"