(BRAVEinMS)

BRAVEinMS rises from the joint efforts of laboratories from five different countries in Europe and North America with the aim of merging and synergizing unique competences in order to identifying promising molecules that can counteract the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). The project aims at detecting potential therapeutic compounds to be rapidly translated into the clinic with a fast-forward step-wise process that can also, indirectly, unveil mechanisms controlling progressive neuronal damage or impaired myelin regeneration.

A robust virtual network pharmacological screening on large libraries of registered and safe-in-human molecules will be implemented and hits with suggestive therapeutic potential will be tested in cell-based in-vitro pharmacological experiments. Rodent as well as human neuro-glia cells will be used as first line screening platform with particular attention to robustly reproduce the data in the human cellular context and in several laboratories to reduce the number of false-negative hits. As a second line screening system, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neural progenitors from MS patients will be used in order to have a disease-in-a-dish tool for human validation studies essential for assessing the disease specificity of our results. Finally, compounds found efficacious in vitro will be extensively evaluated in vivo in several animal models each one representing a clinico-pathological key aspect of the neurodegenerative process occurring in MS patients.

Funding sources:

BRAVEinMS is funded by the International Progressive MS Allience (PMSA), Collaborative Network Award

Research Team:

The current coordinator is Professor Gianvito Martino, from Ospedale San Raffaele. The network consists of 13 international partners including IRGB-CNR, the head of IRGB is Dr. Olla Stefania

Relevant links:

http://braveinms.com/