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Stem cells & MS: what the investigators see.

Article Excerpt
Last month, the National MS Society hosted an international meeting in San Francisco, which allowed 30 cutting-edge investigators to present new findings, share insights, and debate some issues emerging from this frontier in MS research. After lengthy discussions, they forged preliminary agreements about the best ways for the MS research community to move ahead. They grappled with these questions:

* What are the prospects for stem-cell-based treatments for people with MS?

* What are the prospects for stem cell systems to speed drug development by identifying promising compounds?

* How can stem cells help scientists understand the cause of MS?

* What technologies need to be developed or applied to get results in these three areas in the shortest possible time?

* What are the major roadblocks?

Prospects for "endogenous" stem cells

In San Francisco, Dr. Anne Baron-van Evercooren led a discussion with colleagues from the U.K. and the University of Rochester in New York on the potential and current limitations for "endogenous" stem cell therapies. These cells reside in the individual's central nervous sytem. In her laboratory in Paris, she and her colleagues have shown that tissues damaged by MS attacks send distress signals. These signals appear to trigger endogenous stem cells to begin differentiating into immature myelin-making cells, a first step in the body's natural repair process. These stem cells are therefore candidates of great interest in the quest to enhance myelin repair. Her studies also show that they migrate into areas of MS damage in very limited numbers. "We need to find ways to enhance migration and recruitment by the MS lesions," she said. Her group is deep in work with laboratory...

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