Progress in MS Research Live Update 2022

Associate Professor Mowry focuses on environmental factors that influence the risk and prognosis of MS, as well as improving outcome measures for use in the clinic and in clinical trials, including looking at whether high-dose Vitamin D reduces the risk of MS activity. She is also working on refining personalised therapy for people with MS, assisting colleagues with study design, and helping oversee the conduct of MS clinical trials.

Associate Professor Castelo-Branco‘s research focuses on what defines the epigenetic state, (the set of instructions that tell cells how to read DNA) of myelin-producing cells. The aim is to design therapies to induce myelin repair in demyelinating diseases, such as MS.

Professor Chitnis focuses on moving laboratory discoveries to clinical trials for MS and related diseases. She oversees a team of analysts and researchers working to understand the causes, differences and responses to treatment in people with MS, and is investigating why MS progresses differently among diagnosed people to inform new treatments. She also has extensive expertise in sex differences in autoimmune disorders and paediatric MS research.

Dr Dwyer focuses on a gene called MERTK in the immune system, which has been implicated in the development of progressive MS. He will determine whether MERTK acts via immune cells within the brain and spinal cord, or via cells in the blood. Dr Dwyer’s aim is to develop a treatment strategy based on MERTK that will target the right type of immune cells in progressive MS.