St Vincent's campus researchers to lead international multiple sclerosis study

07 Dec 2023

Researchers and clinicians across Australia unite to develop better ways to detect, prevent and treat multiple sclerosis.

St Vincent’s and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have launched an Australia-wide study to improve our understanding of multiple sclerosis, a debilitating autoimmune condition that affects 2.8 million people worldwide.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, incurable disease of the brain and spinal cord, affecting more than 33,000 people in Australia alone and can result in a range of disabling symptoms, including loss of mobility, fatigue, incontinence, and changes to vision.

More than 40 clinicians and scientists have united in the Open Coast-to-Coast Australian Multiple Sclerosis (OCCAMS) consortium to detect genetic ‘biomarkers’ in immune cells that could lead to early detection of multiple sclerosis risk, earlier intervention and better patient outcomes.

The OCCAMS team will establish a national biobank of blood samples from people with multiple sclerosis in Australia. Using sophisticated single-cell sequencing technology and machine learning, the researchers will study the subtle differences in the patients’ immune responses to the Epstein-Barr Virus, which is present in 90% of cases and which raises the risk of developing multiple sclerosis 32-fold.

“The Epstein-Barr Virus is a risk factor for multiple sclerosis; however, only a very small percentage of those infected go on to develop multiple sclerosis. Genetic factors that shape our immune response to the virus may contribute to why some people develop MS and not others”, explains Prof Tri Phan, scientific research lead, St Vincent’s Immunologist and Co-Director of the Precision Immunology Program at Garvan.

Dr Jennifer Massey, clinical research lead and St Vincent’s Neurologist says: “This research may form the basis for future primary prevention studies. It thereby brings much-needed hope to those affected by multiple sclerosis and their families."

The OCCAMS consortium partners are the St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, St Vincent’s Curran Foundation, Westmead Hospital, Sydney Eye Hospital, UNSW Sydney, Monash Health in VIC, the Perron Institute in WA, the University of Sydney, Monash University, University of Tasmania, Australian National University in the ACT, Stanford University in the USA, University of Birmingham in the UK, University of Munster in Germany, MS Australia, and 10x Genomics.