New possibilities for developing ways to repair nerve-insulating myelin in people with Multiple Sclerosis

Members of an Alliance Collaborative Research Network research team have published results in Science Advances that open new possibilities for developing ways to repair nerve-insulating myelin in people with multiple sclerosis.

Along with a companion study previously published, the team’s research addresses an important question in MS: why do the brain’s normal repair mechanisms eventually fail to repair damage to myelin in the brain and spinal cord? Nerve fibers (axons) stripped of their myelin are less likely to survive immune-system assaults that are the hallmark of MS.

A team headed by Dr. Anne Baron-Van Evercooren (INSERM, Paris), in collaboration with Dr. Tanja Kuhlmann (University Hospital Münster), Dr. Jack Antel (McGill University, Montreal), and Dr. Gianvito Martino (San Raffaele Hospital and Vita San Raffaele University, Milan), conducted the study and published the results.