Stem cell cure hope for MS patients
Campaigners have welcomed a prediction that stem cell treatment could be used to help reverse the effects of multiple sclerosis within 15 years.
The treatment could be used to halt the decline of patients suffering from the debilitating nerve condition.
Dr Laura Bell, of the MS Society, said: "These are exciting times for MS research. Ten years ago there were no drugs to treat MS, but today there are a range of therapies available and a dozen more in late stage clinical trials."
She continued: "We're putting millions into MS research and very much hope that the new avenues we are exploring - including stem cells - will bring about major advances in the next ten years."
Professor ffrench-Constant, director of a groundbreaking MS research centre in Edinburgh, told The Herald newspaper that stem cells could be used to help repair nerve damage caused by MS.
He said he wanted to find a way to make the body rebuild myelin - the sheath which protects nerve fibres - using stem cells, which have the ability to turn into different types of tissue. At present, medicines can only help reduce the inflammation which causes MS.
Prof ffrench-Constant added: "My vision for a patient coming into a clinic in ten or maybe 15 years' time is they will be given a mixture of drugs to prevent the inflammation and to promote repair. That way, MS would no longer be a chronic, disabling disease."
He added that he wanted to find ways of using stem cells already present in the brain to make new myelin.
The MS research centre is part of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University. It was launched thanks to a major donation from Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, whose mother died from the condition.
MS affects an estimated 85,000 people in the UK.
