Stem cell progress in MS treatment

Breakthrough treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS) may be just five years away, an Australian leader in stem cell research said yesterday.

Professor Alan Trounson, of Monash University, told the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences open day, that animal trials of an MS therapy had proved so successful he believed hospital trials were likely "really soon".

Researchers had found that primitive nerve cells, grown from stem cells in the lab, could reduce symptoms of an MS-type illness when injected into mice.

The cells had been able to pass into the rodents' brains where they matured into myelin-producing cells. Myelin is an important protective coating around nerve cells that is stripped away in MS sufferers, causing messages to become scrambled.

"Using these cells to reverse conditions like MS, I think, is highly probable in the next five years, perhaps even less," Professor Trounson said.

The potential of stem cells has excited researchers because under the right conditions they can develop into cells from any part of the body.

Stem cells have been used to produce clusters of heart cells, all beating at the same rate as a typical human heart, or bundles of nerve cells able to pass electric signals to one another.

- NZPA

MS Society of Auckland