A new clinical trial launched by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is evaluating the impact of an extra dose of an approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccine in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and other autoimmune diseases who did not properly respond to an original vaccine regimen. Approximately 600 people will…

A new research project, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), aims to better understand how different types of cells in the nervous system — specifically neurons and glia cells — communicate with each other and ultimately affect both motor and non-motor functions. Its findings may have important implications…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $2.3 million grant to a bioengineer at Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering to improve diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS). The project aims to find ways to detect disease-associated cells based on their ability…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $7.2 million grant to a team led by Cleveland Clinic researchers that will study whether a new biomarker might more accurately diagnose multiple sclerosis (MS). Grant money will support a study in 400 adults suspected of having MS to determine if the…

A new research project will seek to understand the development of immune cells that drive autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). The project will be led by Leszek Ignatowicz, PhD, a professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, and will be funded by…

A grant awarded recently by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will fund research to explore how brain changes in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients affect mobility. The five-year grant (1R01NS109023-01A1), totaling $3.5 million, was awarded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of…

The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center at McLean Hospital, also known as the Brain Bank, has signed a new, potentially $12.8 million contract with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that allows it to continue to collect brain specimens from donors with a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders, including…

Brain lesions appearing as dark rimmed, “smoldering” spots on imaging scans, representing active inflammation, may be a hallmark of more aggressive and disabling forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) report. Using a powerful MRI brain scanner and a 3D printer, the…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $1.83 million grant to a Kessler Foundation researcher leading a clinical trial to test if a month-long cognitive training program can improve learning and memory in adults with multiple sclerosis (MS). Nancy Chiaravalloti, PhD, director of the Centers…

The Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSTL) will create a new research center to investigate and advance the development of tracers for positron emission tomography (PET) scans. The center, which will be established at WUSTL’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR), is going to focus on the…

Myelin loss might be prevented by astrocytes, a brain cell that regulates myelin’s thickness in coating nerve fibers to support the proper transmission of nerve signals, after astrocytes were seen to block an enzyme called thrombin in a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Its…

Jonathan Kipnis, the researcher who discovered that lymphatic vessels are important mediators of the underlying molecular mechanism of multiple sclerosis (MS), has received the prestigious Director’s Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This prize recognizes researchers who have made important contributions to the development of new…

A new project aimed at boosting the development of new therapies for multiple sclerosis (MS) and other demyelinating diseases recently won $1.7 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the five-year study, a research team at the University at Buffalo (part of the State University…

An exploratory Phase 1/2 clinical trial in primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) conducted at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirms the safety profile of Raxone (idebenone) at a dose of 2,250 mg daily over two years. But no difference in effectiveness was found between the Raxone-treated group and…

Groundbreaking evidence of the existence of lymphatic vessels in the human brain could answer the question of how the brain gets rid of waste products, and holds clear implications for neuroinflammatory disorders such as multiple sclerosis. The lymphatic system is a network that helps the body to rid itself of toxins and waste products. Lymphatic vessels, which are similar to blood vessels, transport a clear fluid – lymph – which is filtered in lymph nodes. It has long been thought that the brain lacks lymphatic vessels. However, a team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), building on previous research in rodent brains, recently found evidence that the brain may actually drain waste through lymphatic vessels. The researchers injected healthy volunteers with a magnetic dye called gadobutrol, which is usually used as a contrast agent to image blood vessels. They then scanned the brains of these individuals using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) under specific settings. This allowed them to view the dye within the outer layer of the brain, known as the dura. The MRI revealed that the dye was visible both as dots and straight lines, which might indicate lymph vessels. This suggested that the dye leaked out of blood vessels into the dura and were later 'picked up' by lymphatic vessels. These vessels were not seen when the volunteers were injected with another dye that does not leak out of blood vessels. Evidence of lymphatic vessels in the brain was also found in autopsied human brain tissue. Although a pair of 2015 studies had shown evidence of lymphatic vessels in the brains of mice, this is the first study that demonstrates that a similar system exists in human brains. “For years we knew how fluid entered the brain. Now we may finally see that, like other organs in the body, brain fluid can drain out through the lymphatic system,” Reich said . In addition to changing the way we think about the lymphatic system and the brain, this study lays the foundations for future research to investigate whether the function of the lymphatic system is altered in the brains of patients with multiple sclerosis or other disorders affecting the nervous system.

Nortis, a Seattle-based biotech company, has received a $688,000 grant by the National Institutes of Health to create a living, 3-D model of the human blood-brain barrier that will be used for laboratory testing to accelerate drug development and lessen the likelihood of failure in clinical trials. This grant provides funding for a third year of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award given to Nortis by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a branch of the NIH. SBIR provides grants to U.S.-based small businesses to do federal research and enable the commercialization of technology. The blood-brain barrier is a tissue barrier that only allows certain molecules to pass from blood vessels into the brain. It is a protective mechanism to prevent the entry of foreign bodies and infection-causing organisms in the brain. Researchers are trying to find ways of delivering medications across this barrier, to reach brain tissues to treat diseases that include multiple sclerosis. "Understanding how drugs are transported across the blood-brain barrier and interact with the brain presents a significant scientific challenge," Thomas Neumann, CEO of Nortis and principal investigator on the project, said in a press release. "More predictive preclinical models based on human tissue are urgently needed to reduce costs and minimize clinical trial failures," he added. "This grant will help us develop new in-vitro alternatives to traditional pharmaceutical drug development testing on laboratory animals."

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $1 million grant to IQuity, a Nashville-based company looking into novel RNA targets that ultimately benefit patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and other autoimmune disorders. The NIH grant is part of the institute’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

Two Cleveland Clinic researchers were awarded multi-year grants by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under its Outstanding Investigator Award, to find new treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS) and other complex diseases. Bruce Trapp, PhD, an expert in myelin biology and MS, will receive about $7 million over eight years under the…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $45,000 grant to a team of investigators, led by Tia Walker, PhD, at Indiana University Northwest, to support a research project into the role of copper in multiple sclerosis (MS). The award is a first for IU Northwest, and will allow the team to…

In a presentation at a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) public hearing earlier this month, the chief scientific officer of StemGenex Medical Group, Steven A. Brody, MD, PhD, said succinctly: “Stem cells have arrived and have captivated the scientific and medical communities. With this excitement comes responsibility and with this…

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced policy changes designed to make information about clinical trials of investigational drugs, biologics and products more widely available to the public, issuing amended rules that specify the requirements for registering clinical trials and for submitting summary results to its ClinicalTrials.gov website. The…

News that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to hold a public hearing next month to consider greater oversight of stem cell clinics operating in the country is as welcome as it is late. I say “late” because, while the regulators have been twiddling their fingers,…

Novoron Bioscience, Inc., a biotech company focused on developing therapies for disorders of the central nervous system, recently announced that it has received a $680,000 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to assess the potential of a new therapeutic approach to induce remyelination in multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is…

Transparency Life Sciences, LLC (TLS), the first clinical-stage drug development company based on open innovation in the world, recently received a $1.4 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant intended for its phase IIa proof-of-concept study, which is assessing the utility of the ACE inhibitor lisinopril as an adjunctive treatment for patients with multiple…