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this was originally posted by my friend on the cidp forum because what is good for ms is probably good for cidp
Researchers at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital say they've successfully reversed multiple sclerosis in mice, fuelling hope there could soon be treatment available to humans.

An experimental treatment that suppresses the immune system has put multiple sclerosis into remission and completely reversed the disease in the rodents, said scientists at the hospital, who made the discovery by fluke while working on cancer treatments.

Dr. Jacques Galipeau and his team believe the treatment, called GIFT15, could be brought to human patients within two years.

GIFT15 is composed of two fused proteins: GSM-CSF and interleukin-15. The individual proteins usually stimulate the immune system, but together, Galipeau explains, they suppress immune response.

'Jekyll-and-Hyde effect'

"If I take blood cells from your blood stream... I can purify white cells, which normally fight off infection, put them in a petri dish, and we sprinkle this synthetic protein on it, and it has a Jekyll-and-Hyde effect," said Galipeau. The effect blocks immune reaction and prevents brain damage.

This comes as good news to Alex Normandin, a fourth-year medical student, who was diagnosed with MS two years ago. His immune system attacked his central nervous system, creating a host of symptoms including visual, motor skill and cognitive problems.

"I think it's pretty impressive and pretty incredible... you don't want to get too hopeful; you don't want to count your eggs before you have them but..." said Normandin, with a hopeful smile.

The average age of multiple sclerosis diagnosis is 37 years old, and it occurs more frequently in women than men.

McGill/JGH researchers successfully reverse multiple sclerosis in animals
Published: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 12:16 in Health & Medicine


Claudio Calligaries/McGill UniversityA new experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) completely reverses the devastating autoimmune disorder in mice, and might work exactly the same way in humans, say researchers at the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal. MS is an autoimmune disease in which the body's own immune response attacks the central nervous system, almost as if the body had become allergic to itself, leading to progressive physical and cognitive disability.

The new treatment, appropriately named GIFT15, puts MS into remission by suppressing the immune response. This means it might also be effective against other autoimmune disorders like Crohn's disease, lupus and arthritis, the researchers said, and could theoretically also control immune responses in organ transplant patients. Moreover, unlike earlier immune-supppressing therapies which rely on chemical pharamaceuticals, this approach is a personalized form of cellular therapy which utilizes the body's own cells to suppress immunity in a much more targeted way.

GIFT15 was discovered by a team led by Dr. Jacques Galipeau of the JGH Lady Davis Institute and McGill's Faculty of Medicine. The results were published August 9 in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine.

GIFT15 is composed of two proteins, GSM-CSF and interleukin-15, fused together artificially in the lab. Under normal circumstances, the individual proteins usually act to stimulate the immune system, but in their fused form, the equation reverses itself.

"You know those mythical animals that have the head of an eagle and the body of a lion? They're called chimeras. In a lyrical sense, that's what we've created," said Galipeau, a world-renowned expert in cell regeneration affiliated with the Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General and McGill's Centre for Translational Research. "GIFT15 is a new protein hormone composed of two distinct proteins, and when they're stuck together they lead to a completely unexpected biological effect."

This effect, explained Galipeau, converts B-cells -- a common form of white blood cell normally involved in immune response -- into powerful immune-suppressive cells. Unlike their better-known cousins, T-cells, naturally-occurring immune-suppressing B-cells are almost unknown in nature and the notion of using them to control immunity is very new.

"GIFT15 can take your normal, run-of-the-mill B-cells and convert them -- in a Superman or Jekyll -Hyde sort of way -- into these super-powerful B-regulatory cells," Galipeau explained. "We can do that in a petri dish. We took normal B-cells from mice, and sprinkled GIFT15 on them, which led to this Jekyll and Hyde effect.

"And when we gave them back intravenously to mice ill with multiple sclerosis, the disease went away."

MS must be caught in its earliest stages, Galipeau cautioned, and clinical studies are needed to test the treatment's efficacy and safety in humans. No significant side-effects showed up in the mice, he said, and the treatment was fully effective with a single dose.

"It's easy to collect B-cells from a patient," he added. "It's just like donating blood. We purify them in the lab, treat them with GIFT15 in a petri dish, and give them back to the patient. That's what we did in mice, and that's what we believe we could do in people. It would be very easy to take the next step, it's just a question of finding the financial resources and partnerships to make this a reality."

My sister is a grad student at McGill and sent me this article yesterday too.
Amazing, eh?

This is VERY exciting news!!! Uggh I wish I was not so skeptical of everything though!!! Cheer give me some of your energy!!!!!

While certainly some news of hope, this isn't the first experimental drug over the past few decades that has both stopped and reversed MS in mice.

Although the only working model they use for MS research, EAE in mice isn't the same as MS in humans and that is why during this time, these discoveries don't seem to translate into successful treatments for humans.

Let's hope that this new drug proves to be very different and there is truly something to be hopeful for in the next number of years as they proceed with the development of the medication.

Harry

Interesting, but it's actually another cure for mouse EAE.

A granulocyte-macrophage colony–stimulating factor and interleukin-15 fusokine induces a regulatory B cell population with immune suppressive properties

Science has cured the mouse of EAE way more times than I can count. This is moreso an example of bad reporting by a magazine. Even if you could figure out how to give a mouse MS, that would be a major break through. Ken

C'mon guys... a little positivity never hurt anyone.

We all know that an actual cure is a long way off (these are mice after all)

But I like to know that at least someone is trying. (and its Canadian researchers, so I'm a little biased )

On that note, I'll go back to having my dizzy-spell day and hope that sometime in the future i can have just a regular day.

You are right!!! We certainly cannot deny there is much progress being made!!!

Is there really any progress being made? I too am skeptical. While I sincerely hope that this yields an effective treatment, I have read of these same senarios too many times, even since I was diagnosed. They can't give mice real MS because they don't even know what the real cause of "MS" is in humans.

Lets keep our fingers crossed... But I'll be the loyal opposition when it comes to mice and EAE.

Brock

scorpion wrote:This is VERY exciting news!!! Uggh I wish I was not so skeptical of everything though!!! Cheer give me some of your energy!!!!!

Ha...sorry, scorpion. I join your skepticism here. I do not think EAE is the appropriate disease model. Never have, never will. But the drug companies keep using it.
Dr. Cooke at Stanford is giving mice CCSVI...results in the future.
cheer

like we've been saying for years, EAE is clearly not a good disease model, or we'd all be cured! at best it looks like we could have another treatment option on the table with this latest effort.

.

pretty good if your a mouse..

A recent mouse with MS analouge was created in Germany NOT EAE!
As I recall it was Very close to MS and how it was triggered -in the mouse.
Read thier paper maybe 2-3 months ago.
I presumed it(the paper would've been posted here.
Also,I wonder why that paper didn't get any play?
Can someone do alittle digging.
I may have URL in other really buggy laptop-that's if it starts up!
Sorry you all-should've posted it when I first saw it.
A

i would definitely be interested in learning about the premise(s) on which this non-EAE murine model is founded.