Multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis progresses very differently and is therefore difficult to treat. Under the leadership of Charité, researchers at the ECRC and elsewhere are working on an online platform that predicts the course of the disease. The EU's Innovative Health Initiative is financing the project with 9,9 million euros.

A Berlin-based team led by ECRC researcher Dominik N. Müller is analyzing how inflammation of the intestinal mucosa affects blood vessels. They are still looking for study participants – especially people with inflammatory bowel diseases, multiple sclerosis, high blood pressure and diabetes.

She wants to uncover the mechanisms behind inflammatory neurodegenerative diseases, while also developing new therapeutic approaches and testing them in clinical trials. With these goals in mind, Frederike Cosima Oertel is launching the Translational Neuroimmunology Lab at the ECRC.

What role do a common receptor and diet play in chronic inflammation? That is the question that the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) and other partners will pursue over the next three years in a consortium project funded by the BMBF.

Three MDC teams have now been awarded grants from the BMBF for their ideas. The grants aim to make laboratory discoveries available to patients as quickly as possible. The focus is on creating new approaches for diagnosing and treating cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Researchers from the ECRC in Berlin, together with scientists from the United States and Canada, have discovered a sugar molecule whose levels are reduced in the blood of patients with particularly severe multiple sclerosis. Their discovery could pave the way for a new therapeutic approach, the team reports in medical journal JAMA Neurology.

Enlarged ventricles in the brains of people with multiple sclerosis were previously considered a sign of tissue loss. But a team at the MDC and ECRC demonstrated that this expansion often recedes. A study published in JCI Insight now shows that the process observed in mice is transferable to humans.

A simple sugar found in human breast milk and sold as an over-the-counter dietary supplement, promotes myelin repair in mouse models. It correlates with myelination levels in multiple sclerosis patients according to a new study published in JBC by scientists from University of California, Irvine and ECRC.

Previous approaches to treat multiple sclerosis have focused on T and B cells. A group at the MDC now presents a new strategy in "Nature Immunology". According to this strategy, it may be more effective to fight another form of immune cells - certain monocytes.

Dr. Omar Dzaye is investigating ways to help immunotherapy drugs cross the blood-brain barrier more easily, so that they can be more effective in fighting brain cancer. An Else Kröner Memorial Grant will now allow him to carry out further research in this field.