Disease Focus: Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple Sclerosis therapy: Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Neural Progenitor Cells
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system (CNS) caused by inflammation and loss of cells that produce myelin, which normally insulates and protects nerve cells. MS is a leading cause of neurological disability among young adults in North America. Current treatments for MS include drugs such as interferons and corticosteroids that […]
Targeting Stem Cells to Enhance Remyelination in the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease in which the myelin sheath that insulates neurons is destroyed, resulting in loss of proper neuronal function. Existing treatments for MS are based on strategies that suppress the immune response. While these drugs do provide benefit by reducing relapses and delaying progression (but have significant side effects), the […]
Human stem cell derived oligodendrocytes for treatment of stroke and MS
Strokes that affect the nerves cells, i.e., “gray matter”, consistently receive the most attention. However, the kind of strokes that affecting the “wiring” of the brain, i.e., “white matter”, cause nearly as much disability. The most severe disability is caused when the stroke is in the wiring (axons) that connect the brain and spinal cord; […]
Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Remyelination in a Viral Model of Demyelination
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common neurologic disease affecting young adults under the age of 40 with the majority of MS patients diagnosed in the second or third decade of life. MS is characterized by the gradual loss of the myelin sheath that surrounds and insulates axons that allow for the conduction of nerve […]
Improving the efficacy and tolerability of clinically validated remyelination-inducing molecules using developable combinations of approved drugs
Research Objective The candidate is a fixed dose binary small molecule drug combination, consisting of two agents that act synergistically on a multipotent stem cell population in the CNS to stimulate remyelination. Impact The proposed studies will address bottleneck issues related to the effect size and tolerability of clinically validated remyelination drug classes. Major Proposed […]
Cellular Immune Tolerance Symposium
Jeanne Loring, Scripps – CIRM Stem Cell #SciencePitch: Multiple Sclerosis
Advancing Toward Multiple Sclerosis Therapies Using Stem Cells
Dr. Tom Lane of the University of Utah (formerly a CIRM grantee at UC-Irvine) describes his lab’s experimental results that show a dramatic reversal in the debilitating effects of a multiple sclerosis (MS)-like illness in mice after treating them with human neural stem cells. After just two weeks, the mice—who had previously been unable to […]
Living with Multiple Sclerosis: Hope for Stem Cell Therapies | Nan Luke
For more information about CIRM-funded MS research, visit our fact sheet. In her twenties, the left side of Nan Luke’s body went numb from the bottom of her foot up to her chin. The diagnosis was multiple sclerosis (MS) and thirty years later she still experiences that numbness and has had bouts of temporary blindness, […]