Introduction

Over the last year, there have been over 1,500 articles published in medical journals on multiple sclerosis or animal models of the disease. The majority of these articles represent new research into MS, its causes, its mode of action or potential treatments for it. In addition, there has been an even greater amount of new research into cell biology, genetics, the immune system, other autoimmune, inflammatory and neurological diseases, virology and stem cell research - all of which give us a better understanding of the biological environment in which the disease operates.

It is impossible to sum up all of this research in a single essay and, for this reason, I intend to concentrate on those areas which seem to me to be particularly hopeful. This is, therefore, a personal view. This section will take a while to complete but I'm publishing it in installments.

There is no global authority coordinating the MS research effort. This is probably a good thing because it allows researchers to attack the problem from oblique angles and provide novel and unexpected insights into the disease. However, I intend to structure this article as if it were a progress report for just such a global research project. This project would group the research into four areas:

2. Arresting the progress of the disease

Of course, those of us who are already carrying significant deficits as a result of MS might wish to reorder these priorities. In any event, researchers are making significant progress in all these areas.

Finding the Cause of Multiple Sclerosis

Looking for the genes that convey a susceptibility to Multiple Sclerosis

Introduction

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in the genetics of complex diseases such as multiple sclerosis. The human genome has recently been mapped in its entirety and the hope is that this will allow researchers to isolate the genes for such diseases by statistical analysis of affected populations.

See the original post here:
Research in Multiple Sclerosis

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