Thanks to Maren for noting a new name at the next International Society for Neurovascular Disease conference next February in Orlando.

Dr. Michael Chopp has an interesting background.  He is a neurological researcher in traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke and ischemia.

His topic for the conference is TBI, stroke, and the MS vasculature.  After reading his bio, I found this connection very interesting.  Dr. Chopp is well aware of the secondary immune reaction in the brain after ischemic injury, and the cellular death that continues after the initial injury, and he is looking for a means to address this.

 The focus of Prof. Chopp's research is the development of treatments for stroke. His goal is to salvage affected brain tissue. He and his group have recently identified novel death pathways of brain cells after stroke. After the onset of a stroke, brain cells undergo self destruction, a form of programmed cell death. This suicidal process is programmed by genetic alterations. They have identified proteins and genes resposible for the promotion of this form of cell death. With this knowledge, they may be able to intervene to inhibit this suicidal process of cell death. They have also found that after a stroke secondary events contribute to the growth of the dead tissue. A major contributing factor to this secondary injury is the influx of white blood cells into the region of damage. They have identified the signalling molecules that target these cells to the site of injury and have blocked the function of these molecules. Their data indicate that using this therapeutic approach the amount of injured brain tissue is decreased by a factor of two, and that they can significantly reduce damage from stroke.

http://www.oakland.edu/?id=10224&sid=249

I'm happy to see a neurological researcher who is researching the secondary immune reaction after ischemia.  He is obviously opened minded enough (not being an MS specialist) to step back and view MS and CCSVI as a potentially primary disease of ischemic injury.

We are very fortunate to have a growing community of researchers changing the MS paradigm.

Joan