PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Researchers have made an important discovery in the battle against multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the nervous system that strikes when a person is between 20 and 50 years of age, and it affects vision and coordination, causing pain and fatigue.
There are therapies, but Dr. Abdolmohamad Rostami, chairman of the Department of Neurology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, said they are not cures and often leave the patient unable to fight disease.
"We are not curing it either. What we're trying to do is to remove those immune cells which are damaging the brain and spinal cord, and leave the rest of the immune cells which are needed to fight infection and prevent cancer intact. So that that side effects of current medications would not be there,” he explained.
His research uses cultured protective cells that are injected into mice.
Related
"We have done this in animal model of MS and we have shown that if you do this treatment, we can suppress disease, which is similar to MS, but at the same time keep the rest of the immune system intact to fight infection,” he added.
He said the treatment has been shown to be effective in reducing symptoms of the severity of the disease.
The findings have been published in Science Translational Medicine.