In recent years a bewildering number of questions have arisen in the field of treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. To name only a few, there is the all-pervading question: should we suppress relapses or reduce progression of the disease.
Then there is the discovery of the blood-brain barrier as a possible gate control of brain inflammation. And the compartmentalization of brain inflammation in connection with progression of the disease: what is its significance?
Furthermore the appearance of a number of oral immunomodulatory drugs, the growing role of sodium channel blockers in preventing axonal degeneration and finally, the desperate need for reliable biomarkers and clinimetrics.
In this Symposium we would like to bring some order in the field by following the various ‘steps’ of the pathogenic mechanisms of the immune system, as they have been discovered by experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, biotechnology and human pathology: the peripheral part of the immune system, the blood-brain barrier and the inflammation in the brain as a special compartment.
For each step (Target) therapeutical approaches will be reviewed: be it already available immunomodulating treatments, or by approaches that are still in the experimental stage.
We hope that this will provide a rather coherent view of the ends and the means of MS treatment, so that targets may be better focussed.
A symposium is a living organism. All participants should actively engage themselves. To make your task attractive we have collected reputed researchers who will review their fields of interest in each of the immunological steps. We are very happy to have as this year’s European Charcot Foundation Lecturer Prof. Lawrence Steinman, a leading figure in the experimental field of MS.
O.R. Hommes
