Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, often disabling, autoimmune disease that attacks the central nervous system, affecting an estimated 400,000 people in the United States. MS is more prevalent in the Northwest region than almost anywhere else in the world. MS occurs when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks myelin, the fatty substance that surrounds and protects the nerve fibers in the central nervous system. When the myelin is damaged the nerve impulses are not transmitted as quickly or efficiently, resulting in symptoms such as numbness in the limbs, fatigue, dizziness, paralysis and/or loss of vision. Symptoms of MS will often improve and relapse with time and vary from one person to another. In progressive forms of multiple sclerosis, they gradually worsen. BRI has a strong MS clinical research program with extensive experience in local and national clinical trials including studies with the most recent and dramatically efficacious immunotherapies. Clinical trials are led by Mariko Kita, MD, BRI Principal Investigator and Director of the Virginia Mason Multiple Sclerosis Center. The MS registry was added in 2007 to the BRI Translational Research Program led by Jane Buckner, MD. This allows scientists and doctors to study patients’ medical histories and data to understand disease treatment and progression. BRI received a Washington State Life Sciences Discovery Fund grant in 2008 that propelled MS research at BRI into a full-fledged program including basic, translational and clinical research. In 2009, a prominent immunologist, Estelle Bettelli, PhD, joined BRI to start a new laboratory within the Immunology Program that focuses on understanding the basic mechanisms leading to the development of multiple sclerosis and ways to target them.

For more information on MS research at BRI, look at our Multiple Sclerosis Research Fact Sheet and search on multiple sclerosis.