In multiple sclerosis is a disease at birth and spontaneous outbreaks of acute circumscribed inflammation where the immune system promotes an attack (autoimmune reaction) to a protein (myelin) of the central nervous system. Not yet know the specific causes, but so far have been made some progress. Last announcement of IMF, Italian Multiple Sclerosis Foundation: This year will begin testing a treatment for MS on the use of stem cells.

Multiple sclerosis, experimental treatment with stem cells within the year

Exactly. The study will be coordinated in Europe by Anthony Bird. The scientific results collected so far give important indications about the actual feasibility of the use of therapies based on non-hematopoietic stem cells for the treatment of MS. The experimental studies so far have yielded positive results in laboratory animals, which reinforces the belief that the mesenchymal and neural stem cells could become a very important tool for treating chronic inflammatory neurological diseases. However the road ahead is still long.

The study, which will start this year will be conducted through international funding, including primarily the IMF itself. Foundation President, Mario Battaglia, is very enthusiastic: “We are proud that an Italian stem-cell research is funded by our leader internationally and has pioneered an experimental worldwide. This experiment will be internationally touch over 20 countries and Europe will be precisely coordinated by dr. Anthony Bird, University of Genoa. Second is the U.S. coordinator Mark Friedman, University of Ottawa, Canada.

To date, the main experimental studies aimed at novel therapies against multiple sclerosis have been performed in animal models. Researchers at the University of Genoa have studied, in particular, mesenchymal stem cells (adult bone marrow stem cells) and showed that they are able to block many of the activities potentially involved in immune disease.

Instead, the studies Neuroimmunology Unit of the Institute of Experimental Neurology (INSpe) at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan have shown that adult neural stem cells may represent a new therapeutic opportunity for those diseases of the central nervous system that a strong inflammatory reaction causes progressive and irreversible tissue destruction. And this study will focus on its mesenchymal which would act directly on the body, thus reducing the scope of the autoimmune reaction in which the body then has to fight against himself.

However the use of stem cells is still experimental, as the same Professor Bird insists, then “their use for the treatment of MS have to be tested both for safety that the effectiveness in rigorous controlled trials.

In any scientific results received so far provide very important information on the real possibility of achieving a therapy not hematopoietic stem cells for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.