BioCentury
ARTICLE | Targets & Mechanisms

New avenues in MS

January 14, 2010 8:00 AM UTC

Teams at the Karolinska Institute and The University of Tokyo have separately disclosed new targets for multiple sclerosis. Intervention in their pathways could yield new MS therapeutics if the pathways can be targeted more specifically than the standard therapies of steroids and interferon-b.

MS is an autoimmune disease that causes neurological inflammation and demyelination. Recent studies have shown that dysfunctional T helper type 1 (TH1) and TH17 cells cause autoreactivity, which can prompt the immune system to attack the myelin sheath around neurons.1 Thus, many groups are focused on identifying the pathways that lead to the aberrant T cell activation...