Cure for Multiple Sclerosis
Scientist Dr Anne La Flamme and colleagues are searching for a cure for multiple sclerosis.
Scientist Dr Anne La Flamme and colleagues are searching for a cure for multiple sclerosis.
No cure exists for multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that causes nerve degeneration leading to impaired vision and coordination and, eventually, paralysis. One of Victoria University’s researchers is working hard to change that prognosis.
“The goal of our work is to find a cure for multiple sclerosis," says immunologist Dr Anne La Flamme.
“And if it is not possible to find a cure for all MS sufferers then we aim for a treatment that will benefit the subset of patients with MS that do not respond to existing treatments."
Dr La Flamme, an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, heads the MS research programme at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, which is based at Victoria University. One branch of her research is trying to understand the role of one immune cell, the macrophage, in MS.
Macrophages, says Dr La Flamme, are multifunctional immune cells that are found throughout the body and play a key role in mediating immune response. Her research suggests that altering the “mood” or activation state of macrophages can alter the body’s immune response. This finding could lead to new therapies that, rather than turning off the immune response – which is vital for all sorts of functions in the body – redirects or rebalances it.
Another focus of Dr La Flamme’s work is on new drug therapies for MS. In one of several collaborations, she is working with Dr Gill Webster, Chief Scientific Officer of New Zealand biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics, which has developed a new drug that can be used to induce the human immune system to turn off certain immune mechanisms that contribute to autoimmune diseases such as MS.
The drug, which has been approved for compassionate use—where an experimental drug is made available to patients with no other treatment options—has already shown promise in the treatment of secondary progressive MS, an advanced and aggressive form of the disease that does not usually respond to treatment.
Innate Immunotherapeutics has just completed a Phase 2 clinical trial to find the most safe and effective dose of the drug. The interim results are encouraging – the drug was safe and well-tolerated by patients, many of whom showed improvement in MS-related symptoms. The company is now planning a fixed-dose randomised controlled trial in patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis.
In a parallel project, Dr La Flamme and postgraduate students Madeleine White and Nicola Templeton are working with Innate Immunotherapeutics to figure out how the drug works. “We know what the drug targets, but how that target then leads to a reduction in disease severity is not clear,” she says.
“Once we know its pathway we can determine what might synergise with it. Is there another drug that we could use to maximise the effect or is there a particular dosing regime that is more likely to be effective?”