A multidisciplinary team of UW-Madison researchers recently received a five-year, $3.4 million grant to develop techniques for using stem cells to repair nerve damage in victims of diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, and to improve imaging technology to view the lesions and repairs at the cellular level.
The grant was part of $30 million slated for research on nervous-system repair and protection as part of a new campaign called Promise 2010.
MS debilitates the human body like a civil war ravages a country. The immune and nervous systems engage in a fierce battle that invariably leaves the nervous system permanently damaged. Although the rapidly advancing field of MS research has seen five medications approved in just 10 years, these drugs only slow the disease. Doctors are still helpless to cure MS or repair the neurological damage it causes.
UW-Madison researchers hope to change that.
'It's the largest grant we have ever received, and the largest [the National MS Society] has ever given out,' said team leader Ian Duncan, a UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine professor. 'We wrote a competitive and very compelling proposal for research that could lead to clinical applications.'
The proposed research employs experts from 10 independent disciplines in addressing the issue of nerve damage in the 2.5 million people MS affects worldwide.
MS is called an autoimmune disease because the body's immune system recognizes its own tissue as foreign material. Immunological processes meant to protect the human body from infection go horribly wrong when white blood cells instead attack the brain and spinal cord.
The major casualty of this misdirected aggression is myelin, the protective layer of protein that coats the long, thin part of the nerve cell called the axon. Myelin ensures that electric signals, called impulses, travel quickly along the entire length of the axon. These signals are commands from the brain, as simple as raising our foot when we step, or as complicated as recognizing the Russian flag.
MS patients' brains are riddled with patches that are stripped of myelin. Because the immune system attack plan varies, different parts of the brain are affected in each patient, and so symptoms vary also.
Early symptoms often include tingling, numbness, weakness, loss of balance or impaired vision. As the disease progresses, patients also experience impaired thinking, speech problems, dizziness, fatigue and difficulty walking.
Scientists have not determined what causes MS, although many have investigated gender-related, genetic and environmental factors.
Duncan has long been a giant in the field. He has studied techniques for restoring myelin to damaged nerve cells, a process called 'Remyelination,' at UW-Madison for 20 years.
The Myelin Project, another organization that funds Remyelination research, features 13 of Duncan's research publications on its website.
He and his associates have studied Remyelination in humans and other mammals by transplanting nerve cells and manipulating the cells responsible for myelin generation, called oligodendrocytes.
'We're going to take this further,' Duncan said. He and his team, which draws from 10 scientific disciplines, plan to 'isolate [stem] cells that could be used for transplantation [and] find ways of promoting their spreading in various pathological environments.'
To conduct long-term studies of the repair, Duncan said he and his team will develop new imaging techniques using scanning technology already used in most medical fields, magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography.
'We're applying it a little differently, using new techniques,' Duncan said. 'They're the most current and modern techniques that can look at myelin, neurofibers and cellular activation in the brain, and the effects of active drug therapy on them.'
