McGill University researchers in Canada have announced that _ in mice _ they may have found a way to treat and cure multiple sclerosis (MS). In animals they can reverse the devastating disease with a new treatment that suppresses the immune system and forces MS into remission.
Will the treatment work equality well in humans? Let’s hope so! Our wishes for success go out to researchers at the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal.
MS is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system. This attack causes physical and cognitive disability that progresses over time. According to the news out of McGill new combination of two proteins stops this process:
The new treatment, appropriately named GIFT15, puts MS into remission by suppressing the immune response. This means it might also be effective against other autoimmune disorders like Crohn’s disease, lupus and arthritis, the researchers said, and could theoretically also control immune responses in organ transplant patients. Moreover, unlike earlier immune-suppressing therapies which rely on chemical pharmaceuticals, this approach is a personalized form of cellular therapy which utilizes the body’s own cells to suppress immunity in a much more targeted way.
Dr. Jacques Galipeau of the JGH Lady Davis Institute and McGill’s Faculty of Medicine discovered GIFT15. The news shook the world of science and raised the hopes of the patients who suffer from MS when it was published on August 9, 2009 in the journal Nature Medicine.
GIFT15 is 2 proteins, GSM-CSF and interleukin-15, combined in the laboratory. Individually each protein normally stimulates the immune system. Together however they suppress the immune system.
"You know those mythical animals that have the head of an eagle and the body of a lion? They’re called chimeras. In a lyrical sense, that’s what we’ve created," said Galipeau, a world-renowned expert in cell regeneration affiliated with the Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General and McGill’s Centre for Translational Research. "GIFT15 is a new protein hormone composed of two distinct proteins, and when they’re stuck together they lead to a completely unexpected biological effect."
Together as GIFT15 they change B-cells — a common form of white blood cell normally involved in immune response — into powerful immune-suppressive cells. Unlike their better-known cousins, T-cells, naturally-occurring immune-suppressing B-cells are almost unknown in nature and the notion of using them to control immunity is very new.
"GIFT15 can take your normal, run-of-the-mill B-cells and convert them — in a Superman or Jekyll -Hyde sort of way — into these super-powerful B-regulatory cells," Galipeau explained. "We can do that in a petri dish. We took normal B-cells from mice, and sprinkled GIFT15 on them, which led to this Jekyll and Hyde effect.
"And when we gave them back intravenously to mice ill with multiple sclerosis, the disease went away."
To effectively treat multiple sclerosis it must be attacked as early as possible. Of course human trials to study safety and efficacy are needed now. In the current animal studies side effects were non-existent.
Impressively the treatment was fully effective in a single dose of GIFT15.
"It’s easy to collect B-cells from a patient," he added. "It’s just like donating blood. We purify them in the lab, treat them with GIFT15 in a petri dish, and give them back to the patient. That’s what we did in mice, and that’s what we believe we could do in people. It would be very easy to take the next step, it’s just a question of finding the financial resources and partnerships to make this a reality."
PLEASE NOTE: DR. GALIPEAU IS AVAILABLE FOR MEDIA INTERVIEWS ONLY AS OF WED., AUGUST 12.
Contact: Mark Shainblum
mark.shainblum@mcgill.ca
514-398-2189
