The Great NetXperiment!

HAWTHORNE, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mar 19, 2007 - Acorda Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ACOR) today announced that Andrew Goodman, M.D., Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at the University of Rochester, will present data from Acorda’s MS-F203 Phase 3 clinical trial of Fampridine-SR in multiple sclerosis at the upcoming American Academy of Neurology (AAN) meeting.

 The platform presentation will take place on Wednesday May 2, 2007 at 4:15 pm Eastern Time (ET). This abstract was also selected to be part of the Scientific Highlights program, which spotlights the top five percent of the more than 1600 abstracts accepted for presentation at this meeting. The AAN meeting will take place at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.

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 Berlex, Microsoft, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Embark on
  Landmark Collaboration to Help People with MS Maintain Their Health and
                               Stay Connected

    NEW YORK, March 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In today’s fast-paced,
digital environment, more people are embracing the technology that has
revolutionized the way we conduct business, interact with our family and
friends, and manage our households. For some people with multiple sclerosis
(MS), technological advances may offer benefits, but they can also pose
challenges. Due to some MS symptoms, everyday tasks such as seeing a
blinking cursor on a computer screen, manipulating a mouse, or remembering
when to take medication may prove difficult. Industry leaders think they
may be able to change this.

    Recognizing the advantages that technology can bring to people with MS,
leaders from three specialty areas — pharmaceutical, technology, and
patient advocacy — have come together to improve the way technology may
help people with MS maintain their health and independence, have support
for their life choices, and stay connected with their families, friends,
and communities.

Read More - Accessible Technology Can Offer Customizable Solutions to People with MS

For Michelle Schilling and 400,000 other Americans who acknowledge
having multiple sclerosis, symptoms are most often strange and vague —
different for each person.

“I woke up from a nap one day and the
entire side of my body was numb,” Schilling said of her first attack of
multiple sclerosis (MS) seven years ago.

Every week 200 people
in the United States, one every 20 minutes, are diagnosed with MS,
according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

…

There are more than 15,000 people in Ohio diagnosed with MS. It is the
leading disabler of the Ohio economy, costing an individual more than
$57,000 each year and $1 million over the course of the disease,
according to The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Ohio Buckeye
Chapter.

….

Read More: Living with MS

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Mar 15 (Korea Newswire)– Innovation was the word of the day as Intel announced the winners of the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS).

Seventh Place: Megan Blewett, 17, of Madison, N.J., received a $20,000
scholarship for her analysis of a protein that may be implicated in
multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Korea NewsWire

A Russian piano pianist, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, will be playing a recital on a very special piano in Marlborough this evening.Olga Bobrovnikova, who trained as a pianist at the acclaimed Moscow Conservatoire, is touring the country to raise funds for multiple sclerosis (MS) in New Zealand.

The international pianist said she was really looking forward to the one-off piano recital at Marlborough’s Montana Brancott Winery because she would be able to perform on a Steinway used by one of her idols.

“This recital is a special event for two reasons - first the wine - and secondly there is a special Steinway in the visitors’ centre.”This instrument is one that Rachmaninoff, my piano icon, played. I am preparing a special treat with the early romantic works 1891-1906 of the young Sergei

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Research under way at the University of Cincinnati could one day
help short-circuit the most disabling forms of multiple sclerosis.

Istvan
Pirko, a neurologist and researcher in UC’s Waddell Center for Multiple
Sclerosis, is leading a team of researchers studying the role certain
cells in the body’s immune system play in the development of multiple
sclerosis.

In the disease, the immune system seems to attack
myelin, a fatty substance that insulates the nerves. As the insulation
is worn away, various symptoms begin, including loss of vision, balance
and coordination and muscle weakness and fatigue.

The exact cause of multiple sclerosis is unknown, but some experts
believe exposure to environmental toxins or a viral infection might
trigger the attack.

Pirko’s research focuses on the infection theory. He and his team inject mice with viruses to re-create the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, including tell-tale lesions on the brain.

Read More Here - Cincinnati team focuses on infection as MS cause

The medication known for smoothing a wrinkled brow can also relieve uncontrollable muscle tightness that prevents many patients from functioning normally.

Botulinum Toxin, commonly knows as Botox, can paralyze and kill if consumed in contaminated food. But it’s now safely used, in a purified form, as a medicine to control certain conditions marked by involuntary muscle contractions.

SPASTICITY: This is a condition that occurs after a stroke, in multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy patients or those suffering from traumatic brain injuries. Muscles become overactive and tighten uncontrollably. These spasms cause pain and can prevent a person from moving normally.

HOW IT WORKS: Once in the body, the toxin binds to nerve endings at the point where the nerves join muscles. This prevents the nerves from signaling the muscles to contract. The result is weakness and paralysis in that muscle. Botox is not approved by the FDA to treat spasticity, but doctors can prescribe the medication if they think it will be helpful.

ABC7Chicago.com: Botox: Helping Patients Move Again

Biogen Idec Inc. and PDL BioPharma Inc. said Monday a midstage clinical trial using daclizumab along with interferon beta met its primary endpoint for treating multiple sclerosis.In a Phase II clinical trial, 230 patients were given either daclizumab or a placebo and then given interferon beta, a protein that helps the immune system.

Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable neurological disease when the tissue insulating nerve fibers become damaged with lesions.Patients given daclizumab every two weeks had a significantly reduced lesions at week 24 compared with those in the placebo group.

Full results will be presented at a medical conference later in the year.As a result of the successful study, the companies plan to start a midstage clinical trial that uses daclizumab alone as a multiple sclerosis treatment.Biogen and PDL are partners in developing the drug as a treatment for multiple sclerosis. The drug is already marketed by Hoffman-La Roche under a license from PDL as the kidney organ rejection treatment Zenapax.

Biogen, PDL drug passes clinical trial

The biggest
question in multiple sclerosis is, why does the body turn on itself and
attack the protective insulation around nerves as a dangerous invader?

Short of knowing why, Dr. Thomas Forsthuber is content to figure out how — and better still, how to stop it.

“You need a series of unfortunate events to develop the disease, an
unfortunate constellation,” said Forsthuber, professor of immunology at
the University of Texas at San Antonio’s South Texas Center for
Emerging Infectious Diseases. “We’re trying to understand how.”

In multiple sclerosis, the body’s natural defenses damage and scar the
protective myelin sheath — layers of fat and protein — that surrounds
nerves, interrupting their signals like a frayed electrical wire. The
first symptoms of the disease often are vision problems, followed by
muscle weakness, difficulty with coordination and balance, pain and
numbness.

Most patients have mild or moderate forms of
the disease, with symptoms that come and go, but some are left unable
to write, speak or walk. About 400,000 Americans have MS, which is
usually diagnosed in people between ages 20 and 40.

Forsthuber brought his work to UTSA a little over a year ago from Case
Western Reserve University in Cleveland after 15 years of studying MS
and other autoimmune disorders. In August he received his third career
research grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to continue
his work.

Read More Here Don Finley

autoimmune disorders MS Stuff multiple sclerosis national multiple sclerosis society

Danish and Belgian researchers have found a computer key that maps genes underlying heritable disorders, such as breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. These results will possibly ease the discovery of new medicines and improve treatment in various disorders.

The results which are published in the current issue of Nature Biotechnology show that genes important for the development of diseases like Alzheimer’s follow the same cellular rules as genes involved in fundamentally different disorders, such as heart disorders, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, and Type 2 diabetes.”Many disorders manifest themselves in fundamentally different ways, but the new surprising discovery is that the underlying genes play together after the same rules. Our results show that the genes that trigger diseases, regardless of the type of disease in question, are social team players who cooperate according to highly specific rules.

These rules have now been mapped, and we have pointed at hundreds of new genes that are likely to be involved in disorders including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson, heart disorders, and diabetes”, says Kasper Lage from Technical University of Denmark, who is the project coordinator on this work.Heritable disorders will be easier to interpret for clinicians using the new results. Furthermore, the identification of new genes likely to be involved in disorders will help patients with defects in these genes.

For example, if you are a high risk carrier of a gene that underlies a disease such as Type 2 diabetes, physicians could prevent or delay the manifestations of the disease by dietary guidance early in life.”This is a crucial breakthrough for our understanding of heritable disorders, and a breakthrough for systems biology as a research strategy in the field genetics and disease”, says Søren Brunak leader of Center for Biological Sequence analysis at the Technical University of Denmark.

“We work with genes and proteins, but also with clinical literature describing the characteristics of different disorders. Then we let the computer integrate all of these data, and extract the pattern”, he adds.The results are the product of a collaboration between the Center for Biological Sequence analysis, the Wilhelm Johannsen Center for Functional Genomics, Steno Diabetes Center in Denmark, and the SymBioSys Center for Computational Systems Biology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF DENMARK (DTU)

Computer Key Unlocks Heritable Disorders