genetics

In a recent study published in The Journal of Immunology, researchers from a Northwestern Medicine lab discovered a potential clue about why women are more likely than men to develop autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS). The researchers used a specific white blood cell, called the innate lymphoid cell,…

A team led by researchers at San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Italy and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts recently revealed a new genetic variant linked to multiple sclerosis (MS). The study is entitled “A pharmacogenetic study implicates SLC9a9 in multiple sclerosis disease activity” and is published in…

Dr. Jose Álvarez-Cermeño and Dr. Luisa Villar from Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria in Madrid, Spain recently published in the journal Nature Reviews Neurology a review on the work developed by Dr. An Goris and colleagues on the link between genetic factors and multiple sclerosis…

A new commentary concerning genetic variability in multiple sclerosis patients highlights a new marker of disease severity. Local IgG (antibody) synthesis is found in over 90% of multiple sclerosis patients, and there is a genetic basis for this hallmark of disease. “A new genome-wide association…

MS Research Australia has awarded a $150,000 grant to support a project being conducted at Murdoch University aimed at expanding scientific knowledge on the correlation between multiple sclerosis (MS) and Epstein-Barr virus infection. The research grant was awarded to David Nolan, an adjunct associate professor at the Institute of Immunology and Infectious Diseases (IIID),…

National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists may have discovered a critical immune system switch that could affect genes involved in autoimmune diseases. The ground-breaking work, published in the journal Nature, may be useful for developing treatments for autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is characterized by an immune system…

A team led by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) recently revealed in the journal ASN NEURO a new genetic variation that significantly increases the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) in women. The study is entitled “A Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism in…

A team of researchers from Italy recently examined if p53 genetic variants influence synaptic and toxic effects of cytokines in the neurodegenerative processes that occurs in Multiple Sclerosis. The study, entitled “Interleukin-1β causes excitotoxic neurodegeneration and multiple sclerosis disease progression by activating the apoptotic protein p53,” was recently published…

A recent study entitled “STAT5 programs a distinct subset of GM-CSF-producing T helper cells that is essential for autoimmune neuroinflammation” describes a new subset of T helper immune cells – TH-GM – that express a particular cytokine profile with implications in therapeutics for multiple sclerosis. The study was…

Researchers from UC San Francisco, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Yale School of Medicine recently developed a software tool that helps researchers understand the complex genetic origins of many autoimmune diseases and, ultimately, to better diagnose and treat them. The study was published yesterday in …

Approximately 110 multiple genetic variations were previously identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to be associated with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Now, that number has increased, with more than 159 genetic variants identified, thanks to new research presented by Philip De Jager, M.D., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical…

While the majority of scientists dedicated to multiple sclerosis research focus on genetic regulators of conditions such as autoimmunity, demyelination, inflammation, and neurodegeneration, a team from the University of Lubeck in Germany, led by Saleh M. Ibrahim, MD, PhD, focuses on genetic regulators of conduction velocity. The team is uncovering…

The diagnosis of a disease normally depends on the risk factors one is exposed to during his or her lifetime, and subsequently therapeutic measures are taken in order to treat the same with hopes of a better prognosis and a healthy lifestyle. However, scientists at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital…

For years, clinicians and patients could only notice and accept the fact that four times more women than men are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Now, a group of researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are uncovering a potential reason for the disparity, and they recently…

New classes of pharmaceutical agents tailored to fight autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, may be identified more effectively by adding genome analysis to standard drug screening, according to results of a new study by a collaborative research team led by UC San Francisco and…