Auckland research gives hope to people with MS

By SIMON COLLINS

Scientists have developed a treatment which may eventually rescue people with multiple sclerosis from what is often an inexorable slide towards a wheelchair.

The treatment, pioneered at the Auckland Medical School, produced a complete recovery in mice paralysed by a similar disease. If it works in people, it could transform the lives of 2.5 million MS sufferers worldwide, including 3000 in New Zealand.

The disease makes the body's immune system attack the protective coating around its own nerve cells, causing blurred eyesight, balance problems and eventually paralysis which get worse with every attack.

An Aucklander with MS who was completely paralysed and in hospital for three months, Carolyn Ryan, called the breakthrough "really exciting".

"It sounds to me as though it's a very special thing, because as far as I know, no one has come up with a way to actually treat people who already have damaged nerves. It's really revolutionary."

Auckland researcher Dr Tom Miller, who was research director of the MS Society until recently, said the new treatment was the first time anyone had been able to reverse the deterioration in the health of an MS victim, rather than just slowing it.

Associate Professor Geoff Krissansen, who led the research team, said existing treatments all attacked only one part of the problem.

His team's approach, published in the Oxford journal Brain, combines two elements:

* An antibody that prevents white blood cells of the immune system from breaking into the central nervous system when they get confused.

* Two "neuroprotectors", a widely used chemical NBQX and a molecule, glypromate, which is part of a growth factor occurring naturally in the body. They protect individual nerve cells from attack and let the body rebuild the nerves' protective coatings.

"It's the combination of the two neuroprotectors which seems to be critical, because both the neurons and the cells that repair them have to be protected," Dr Krissansen said.

The treatment requires a continuous injection of the two neuroprotectors and injection of the antibodies every two or three days.

Dr Krissansen, a molecular researcher who also works on cancer and other diseases, has studied MS for seven years. He said progress was slow until Indian scientist Dr Jagat Kanwar joined the team soon after moving to New Zealand with his wife Dr Rupinder Kanwar, who is also part of the team.

The project got another boost when the Royal Society awarded Dr Krissansen a rare James Cook Fellowship to work on the research fulltime in 1998-99, followed by a Marsden grant from 2000 to2002.

Patents for the treatment have been handed over to Neuren Pharmaceuticals (formerly Neuronz), based in the medical school's Liggins Institute.

Neuren chief scientist Dr Peter Gluckman said the company hoped to start phase one clinical trials of glypromate next year.

Dr Krissansen said it would be at least 10 years before the treatment got through all the trials required for general use with MS patients.

Multiple sclerosis

* Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease where the body's immune system gets confused and attacks the protective coating around nerve cells.

* It causes problems with walking and hand movement, extreme tiredness, bladder or bowel trouble, mental and sexual dysfunction, and eventually paralysis.

* It is most common in colder climates. It is roughly twice as common in Southland as in the Waikato.

* It also tends to run in families, but scientists have not yet found the genes associated with it.

* Until now, there has been no known cure.

Auckland Medical School research report

MS Society of Auckland