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University of Alberta research scientist Allison Kraus is one of the team of scientists sharing a new discovery -- they have identified a new player in neurological diseases which could one day help people with MS and other diseases.
Photograph by: Chris Schwarz, edmontonjournal.com
EDMONTON — A surprise discovery by a young Edmonton researcher at the University of Alberta has opened a new area of research around multiple sclerosis.
Allison Kraus, a 26-year-old PhD student, was studying the gene calnexin under her supervisor, Marek Michalak. They discovered that when they disabled the gene in mice, the animals had mobility issues — trouble walking and paralysis in their back legs — that patients with multiple sclerosis and other related diseases often experience.
When they took a detailed look inside the mice, they found that silencing the gene caused tissue deformations around the animal's nerves, deformations that look the same as those found in humans with multiple sclerosis.
Scientists still don't know what causes multiple sclerosis, or MS, in humans.
"It was actually a very exciting finding," said Michalak. "This really was from curiosity-driven research. It would not have been predictable. This is an example of taking risks and winning."
The scientists are still far from finding new treatments for MS or related diseases, but they are closer to understanding what might cause it, said Michalak.
The lab's next step will be to take nerve samples from human subjects and confirm that the deformations found in humans and mice are actually the same. If that is the case, it will change how scientists think about MS, he said.
Multiple sclerosis is a crippling neurological disease that causes muscle weakness, spasms and difficulty in moving or speaking. It has been linked to damage done to the myelin sheath, which covers a portion of the neuron — the damage slows down nervous impulses. Scientists believe the damage is caused when the neuron is attacked by the immune system; they don't know why it happens, but they suspect genes play a role.
Kraus decided to study the gene to earn a PhD before any link to MS was suspected.
She's the daughter of a bank teller and a sporting good salesman, was born in Regina and first came to Edmonton for her undergraduate degree in 2001. Now she plays on an intramurals hockey team, the Biochemical Disasters, for fun, and spends most of her working time in the crowded third floor lab. She hopes to defend her thesis next summer and continue research as a career.
"It's exciting, when you work in a lab," she said.
She has friends and a close relative with multiple sclerosis, and she's delighted by the possibility that her research could help them. "MS is a difficult disease because it's so life-altering," she said. "To watch people lose their mobility is always difficult."
The research was funded by about $200,000 in annual grants from Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Alberta Innovates and the MS society.
Julie Kelndorfer, a 35-year-old with MS, was also at Thursday's announcement. Her seven-year-old son Joshua made it his New Year's resolution last year to do better on the walk for MS.
His team raised $15,000 dollars to "find a cure for Mommy," she said. Now she can point to how it is helping.
"This was out of the blue, that's what I love about this discovery," she said. "Josh's little contribution helped. His funding made a difference."
Multiple sclerosis has been making headlines of late as the issue of clinical trials and other research on the controversial MS treatment known as liberation therapy, or the Zamboni procedure, heated up.
The procedure, which isn't offered in Canada, involves opening up blocked veins. The federal and provincial governments have been under intense pressure from some MS patients to make it accessible here.
This week, Canada's health ministers agreed to lay the groundwork so clinical trials could be launched quickly, if and when preliminary results from current research indicate they are warranted.
Edmonton Journal with files from Postmedia News
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(Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Canadian+scientists+find+gene+that+could+lead+treatments/3539058/story.html#ixzz0ztp1rCYR)
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