Designated The Promise: 2010 Initiative, it's the largest research effort aimed at finding a cure for multiple sclerosis. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, a patient advocacy organization based on New York City, is pledging $30 million to fund the campaign aimed at advancing MS research and patient care. The Society is launching the effort with a $15.6 million commitment to support collaborative research that will focus on ways to protect and rebuild the central nervous system.

Proactive Research Effort
The money will be funneled to four medical teams in the United States and Europe to lay the groundwork for clinical trials scheduled to take place in the next five years. The teams are based at Johns Hopkins University; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the University of Cambridge; and University College London, with other collaborators in Canada, Europe, and the United States.

"We're excited that these international 'dream teams' of leading scientists and physicians have accepted our challenge to develop the tools needed for conducting clinical trials aimed at protecting against and repairing nervous tissue damage in MS," said John Richert, MD, vice-president of Research and Clinical Programs at the National MS Society. "This is a new chapter in MS research, and should serve as a springboard for translating basic lab findings into important new treatments for people with MS."

Myelin: Top Priority Objective
According to the MS Society, recent progress in controlling the abnormal immune attacks against tissue in the central nervous system—a hallmark of multiple sclerosis—as well as rapid advances in the neurosciences, have made repair and protection of nervous system tissue such as myelin a high-priority research objective in recent years.

Myelin is a fatty substance that surrounds and insulates delicate nerve endings in the brain and spinal cord, the two main elements of the central nervous system. For unknown reasons, when MS occurs, the immune system goes haywire, attacking myelin and other nearby tissues in the central nervous system, stripping it away, and leaving the nerve endings vulnerable and unable to transmit impulses between each other. This damage to the nerve endings is manifested as the various symptoms experienced by people with MS.¹

Rebuilding the Nervous System is a Key Goal
The research teams awarded the unprecedented funding from the Society plan to take multi-faceted approaches over the next five years to find ways to protect brain tissue and rebuild the central nervous system damaged by the disease.

"Collaboration is critical to achieving our goals with these projects," Richert stressed. "We know that sharing ideas and key findings will get us to the finish line that much faster."

The $30 million to be raised as part of The Promise: 2010 Initiative will be a collective effort on the part of nearly 50 MS Society local chapters around the country. In addition to research aimed at repairing the central nervous system, other efforts include:

-The establishment of Pediatric MS Care Centers to improve care and propel research into pediatric MS.

-The MS Lesion Project, an international pathology study that will seek to map out and understand the damage inflicted by the disease with the goal of developing better treatment.

-The Sonya Slifka Longitudinal MS Study, which involves long-term follow-up of people with MS over time to better understand how the disease affects them and their families.

1. National Multiple Sclerosis Society. What is Multiple Sclerosis? Available at: http://www.nationalmssociety.org/What%20is%20MS.asp. Accessed September 2, 2005.

John Martin is a long-time health journalist and an editor for Priority Healthcare. His credits include overseeing health news coverage for the website of Fox Television's The Health Network, and articles for the New York Post and other consumer and trade publications.