US funding for Queensland multiple sclerosis project
A University of Queensland project has been awarded substantial United States funding to examine the causes of multiple sclerosis.
The project may ultimately assist researchers to tailor more specific treatments for the non-curable auto-immune disease, rather than generic treatments which suppress the immune response.
Current treatments for multiple sclerosis are aimed at non-specifically suppressing the immune system, and can have unwanted side effects.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society of the US has awarded about A$880,000 to the study led by Dr Judith Greer and Professor Michael Pender of UQ's Medicine Department at Royal Brisbane Hospital. It is one of only 200 grants made internationally by the Society each year.
Multiple sclerosis is a common inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) affecting two million people worldwide, and about 10,000-20,000 people in Australia.
In MS, a person's own immune system starts to attack parts of the brain and spinal cord, causing lesions that prevent nerve impulses from passing from the brain to other parts of the body. The symptoms that people with MS develop can vary from one person to another, depending on where in the brain or spinal cord, the lesions occur.
"It's commonly diagnosed when people are in their early 20s, and many patients experience a slow, progressive worsening of their MS throughout their lives," Dr Greer said.
The four-year project will explore a possible link between the locations of lesions and the genetic factors controlling the immune response.
Dr Greer is particularly interested in a protein the central nervous system called PLP, and the role it might play in multiple sclerosis.
US researcher Dr Marjorie Lees discovered PLP in the 1950s, and Dr Greer was fortunate to undertake her postdoctoral fellowship with her at Harvard Medical School in the early 1990s. She has been interested in PLP and its potential role as a target of autoimmune attack ever since.
"We've identified several portions of PLP against which a lot of MS patients make autoimmune responses," she said.
"Some preliminary results strongly suggest that there is a link between carrying particular genes that control immune responses, having immune cells that can attack PLP in the nervous system, and developing lesions in parts of the brain that control balance.
"We will also look for other links between immune cells that can attack other proteins, and development of lesions in particular areas.
"If such links can be identified, they would enable more specific treatments for MS to be developed. We will also use experimental models of MS to investigate the exact components within the nervous system and within the immune system that play a role in directing the attack to particular sites."
The project is being conducted in collaboration with Dr Elisabeth Trifilieff of the Universite Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, whose students have visited the UQ lab. Dr Greer hopes to arrange reciprocal visits for UQ students to France.
The multi-pronged project will also include immunological and magnetic resonance imaging studies. Ms Kaye Cameron from the MS Clinic at RBH, which is jointly run by the UQ and the RBH, is helping co-ordinate and collect samples from patients. The Radiology Department at RBH will collaborate in the magnetic resonance imaging studies to identify the locations of lesions in the central nervous systems of patients.
Media: Further information, Dr Judith Greer, telephone 3365 5133.
