Genomic Markers of Multiple Sclerosis and Responsiveness to Drug Therapy in Humans

This subproject, led by Dr. Robertson at Dalhousie University in Halifax, explores the correlation between genomic response to interferon-β and clinical responsiveness to this therapy in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). It is also determining the extent to which specific patterns of apoptosis-related gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear lymphocytes (PBML) and T cells from MS patients are predictive of three factors:

• Disability status.
• Disease progress over time (prognosis).
• Responsiveness to commonly administered interferon-β (IFN-β) therapy.

The ultimate goal of this research is to identify proteins that will serve as the basis for a reliable, rapid, and inexpensive blood test based on reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or ELISA. This test will potentially enable significant cost savings by minimizing treatments unlikely to offer therapeutic benefit and may provide new information that assists interpretation of MRI scans.

For the new 4D visualization system, this joint research provides a valuable test case for pharmaceutical studies on human subjects and guides the Sensen team in the design of appropriate 4D visualization components. The expertise gained through this subproject will help to better market the 4D visualization system to pharmaceutical companies because it provides human data research to showcase. These data are an asset for future commercialization to any organization where human results are pivotal.