|
Why The Repository Is Needed
The problem: Although MS has been actively studied for a long time,
very little progress has been made in determining the causes of this
disease. Determining the causes of MS is not going to be an
easy task but instead will require new approaches and strategies.
One point that has become clear in recent years is that although studying human
samples is essential to understanding MS, the small-scale studies commonly performed in the past are
not likely to reveal very much. We need to encourage studies that
include large numbers of subjects - thousands vs. tens.
It also seems clear that MS is not caused by a single factor
- if it were, that factor probably would have been found by the
research done to date. So we need to start looking for interactions
between factors that together lead to MS.
However, two enormous obstacles stand in the way:
- Most scientists don't have access to large numbers of people with
MS (and those who do rightly want to spend their time on science
rather than on managing repositories).
- Most scientists don't study interactions between factors. They
study genes, or viruses, or toxic agents, or other factors, but very
few study combinations of these - mastering a single discipline is challenging enough.
The solution: We saw a way to solve both of these problems with
a single solution - creation of a large-scale repository of samples and data
from people with MS and controls that is available
to any scientist doing important work investigating the causes of MS.
The repository contains various types of samples and data that can
support scientists working in many fields - genetics, nutrition,
virology, etc. Researchers gaining access to the repository will return their results to the database to be shared with
other researchers; this will allow cross-correlation of their results
with all other studies performed using the same samples.
Hypothetical example:
|
A geneticist wants to use a new microchip to study thousands of
genetic markers in people with MS and controls. A virologist has a
similar approach for finding evidence of past infections in blood
samples. We provide samples from the same people to each researcher
and combine their data once it's been generated. Then we search that
data for patterns - such as a set of genetic risk factors that are
more common in people with MS who are infected with a certain virus.
Together with the geneticist and virologist, we've now found a virus
that increases the risk of MS but only in people with certain genetic
variants. This is the type of important result we believe this
repository will produce.
|
The repository will help people with MS by:
- Making scientists more productive - with our support, they can
conduct much larger studies, they don't have to spend years building
their own sample collections, and they will make much faster progress
toward determining the causes of MS.
- Making each scientific experiment more powerful and more meaningful
by combining the data it produces with other past and future
results.
- Encouraging investigators from outside the MS community to study
our disease. We may find brilliant researchers who have techniques that
would be ideal for studying MS but who don't have access
to people with MS. We can make it possible for these techniques to
benefit MS. Likewise, commercial companies developing innovative
analysis technologies might become interested in studying MS because
of the availability of our samples.
- Increasing our knowledge about what happens in people with MS over
time by collecting samples and data on a yearly basis. Certain
characteristics of how MS changes over time may indicate subtypes of
the disease. By following our participants over time, we have an
opportunity to learn about these subtypes.
- Accelerating the process of determining the causes of MS and
channeling these findings into the development of cures, treatments, new animal
models of the disease, and diagnostic and prognostic techniques, as well as other
important accomplishments.
Medical research is currently experiencing a renaissance. New
techniques for generating and analyzing large amounts of data will
enable important advances in understanding how diseases develop that
were not previously possible. The Accelerated Cure Project MS repository
will help ensure that people with MS fully benefit from these new
scientific advances and will bring them ever closer to a cure.
Repository Testimonials
Repository Research
|
