No MS'n Around

11/30/2025

Interesting 🤔

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Au75VARtF/?mibextid=wwXIfr

A new study from the University of British Columbia has revealed that multiple sclerosis (MS) may start showing warning signs up to 15 years before the classic symptoms appear. Researchers analyzed health records of over 12,000 people who were later diagnosed with MS—and the findings were eye-opening.

They found that long before numbness, vision problems, or balance issues develop, people often experience subtle symptoms like fatigue, body aches, dizziness, anxiety, and depression. About 12 years before diagnosis, psychiatry visits begin to rise. Around 8–9 years out, there’s an increase in visits to neurologists and eye specialists for blurred vision and other early clues. In the final years, emergency and radiology visits spike as symptoms become more serious. The year before diagnosis showed the highest number of medical visits across many specialties.

These insights could help doctors detect MS much earlier—through close monitoring, biomarkers, and combining genetic and lifestyle data. While most people with occasional fatigue or pain won’t develop MS, a persistent pattern over many years could be important for earlier diagnosis and treatment.

11/26/2025

11/16/2025

Here’s a more concise description of CAR-T therapy for Multiple Sclerosis (MS):

https://www.mslivingwell.org/2025/10/14/car-t/

Maximizing your potential to live well with multiple sclerosis should be the goal. Learning more about MS, including treatment options, allows you to make better decisions that can affect you now and in the future.

11/16/2025

“Researchers try bold new approach in race to treat autoimmune diseases”

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Scientists are trying a revolutionary new approach to treat devastating autoimmune diseases by reprogramming patients’ out-of-whack immune systems. Here's how. https://www.wfla.com/news/researchers-try-bold-new-approach-in-race-to-treat-autoimmune-diseases/

11/06/2025

Study Identifies Early Markers of MS

(10/20/25)

A new study found that biological signs of multiple sclerosis (MS) can be detected in blood samples years before symptoms begin.

To find out more, click here:

https://www.nationalmssociety.org/news-and-magazine/news/early-markers-of-ms-damage?utm_source=imt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fy26_newsletter_nov_1_fy26

The National MS Society is the leading resource for MS research, education, and support. See how we drive progress to change the world for people affected by MS.

10/30/2025

New MS research on medications – ECTRIMS 2025

https://msology.ca/new-ms-research-on-medications-ectrims-2025

10/30/2025

A biology teacher became the UK's first multiple sclerosis patient to receive CAR T-cell therapy. The treatment genetically reprograms her own immune cells to target MS-causing B cells. Emily Henders received the three-minute infusion at University College London Hospital. She reports feeling normal with renewed energy following the procedure.

The therapy aims to provide long-term remission with a single treatment. This approach could potentially eliminate the need for ongoing medication. Doctors hope it will transform MS treatment by halting disease progression.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Bg12bwkYm/?mibextid=wwXIfr

A biology teacher became the UK's first multiple sclerosis patient to receive CAR T-cell therapy. The treatment genetically reprograms her own immune cells to target MS-causing B cells. Emily Henders received the three-minute infusion at University College London Hospital. She reports feeling normal with renewed energy following the procedure.

The therapy aims to provide long-term remission with a single treatment. This approach could potentially eliminate the need for ongoing medication. Doctors hope it will transform MS treatment by halting disease progression.

10/26/2025

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A series of breakthroughs are fueling hope for curing autoimmune diseases long considered incurable, Sarah Zhang reported in 2024. https://theatln.tc/GGq01P63

More than 40 people with lupus have now undergone new CAR-T cell therapy, and most have gone into drug-free remission. It is too early to declare any of these patients cured for life, but that now seems within the realm of possibility.

“The disease causes the immune system to go rogue in a way that can strike virtually any organ in the body, but when and where is maddeningly elusive,” Zhang continued. Doctors have long believed that Lupus—like other autoimmune diseases—cannot be cured. But two years ago a German study rocked these assumptions: “Five patients with uncontrolled lupus went into complete remission after undergoing a repurposed cancer treatment called CAR-T-cell therapy, which largely wiped out their rogue immune cells,” Zhang wrote. The first patient to receive this treatment has been symptom-free for almost four years.

“CAR-T-cell therapy was originally developed as a way to kill malignant cells in blood cancer,” Zhang continued. But now doctors have hope that it could offer a bigger breakthrough for autoimmune diseases beyond just lupus, including multiple sclerosis, myositis, and myasthenia gravis. “The success of CAR-T has inspired researchers to borrow other—cheaper and simpler—strategies from cancer therapy to kill immune cells gone awry,” Zhang continued. “Not all of these ideas will pan out, but if any do, the next few years could bring an inflection point in treating some of the most frustrating and intractable diseases of our modern era.”

For now, CAR-T for lupus and other autoimmune diseases is mostly available in the U.S. only through clinical trials, which means the majority of lupus patients cannot access the treatment. CAR-T treatments are also long and expensive. “Because each patient’s own cells are reengineered, it cannot be easily scaled up,” Zhang wrote. Still, “even if CAR-T itself is never widely adopted for autoimmune diseases, it has opened the door to new ideas that could one day revolutionize their treatment.”

🎨: The Atlantic. Sources: Jacopin / BSIP / Getty; Velimir Zeland / Shutterstock.

10/17/2025

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A Nobel Prize just went to scientists who found a way to stop your immune system from attacking you.

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded for one of the most important discoveries in immunology: the biological system that keeps your immune system from turning on you.

Your immune cells are trained to destroy viruses, bacteria, and other foreign invaders. But that power has to be kept in check – or it can misfire, attacking your own organs. The process that prevents this is called peripheral immune tolerance, and it’s largely controlled by a type of cell called the regulatory T cell.

This year’s Nobel went to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi for uncovering the genetic and cellular systems that make this immune self-regulation possible.

Back in 1995, Sakaguchi identified a previously unknown class of T cells that seemed to hold back the immune system from attacking the body. A few years later, Brunkow and Ramsdell discovered the gene that controlled them – FOXP3 – after studying a rare, fatal autoimmune disease in children. They found that when this gene is mutated, the immune system becomes unregulated and begins destroying healthy tissue.

Two years after that, Sakaguchi made the connection: FOXP3 was the master switch for the same immune-regulating cells he had identified earlier.

These discoveries launched a new field of research. Regulatory T cells are now being investigated in therapies to suppress autoimmunity, improve transplant success, and even enhance cancer treatment by modulating immune suppression around tumors.

Learn more:
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025

08/16/2025

Nebraska Medicine patient is first in the world to receive a new allogeneic CAR T-Cell therapy for multiple sclerosis.

https://www.unmc.edu/newsroom/2025/08/06/nebraska-medicine-patient-is-first-to-receive-new-ms-therapy/

A first-of-its-kind clinical trial is examining the effectiveness of allogeneic CAR T-Cell therapy.