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New Strategy for Myelin Repair Targeted by Society-Funded Team

May 10, 2021

Researchers at the University of Buffalo have identified “SULF2,” a molecule involved in cell signaling, as a possible target for strategies to promote the repair of myelin, the substance that surrounds nerve fibers and is damaged in MS. SULF2 is found at high levels in brain lesions in people with MS; when SULF2 is deleted from MS mouse models, myelin repair is accelerated.

The team also reports that PI-88, a SULF2-blocker now in clinical trials to treat cancer, improves repair in mice with damaged myelin. This research was supported in part by the National MS Society, and the team leveraged these results to gain funding from the Department of Defense’s MS Research Program to continue exploring whether PI-88 has potential as a myelin repair treatment to restore function in MS.

Read more from the University at Buffalo

Read the scientific publications on this research in Nature Communications and The Journal of Neuroscience
 

About Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. Symptoms range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis, and there is currently no cure for MS. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are leading to better understanding and moving us closer to a world free of MS. An estimated 1 million people live with MS in the United States. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, and it affects women three times more than men.

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