Epigenetics answers questions about MS

What are you researching?

“I’m studying epigenetics related to multiple sclerosis, or MS. It’s an exciting field since many advances have been made in the past few decades, yet there is still so much that needs to be done. We still don’t fully understand the disease mechanisms and there are no curative treatments. A large number of risk genes have been identified, as well as numerous environmental and lifestyle risk factors. That is why we are now inte- rested in the epigenetic level, which is where you could say the influence of genes and environment meet. Also, epigenetics can be utilized to treat the disease.”

What do you hope to discover?

“We are trying to answer two questions. First of all, how does the disease arise and what is it that triggers the aggressive immune response in the brain? This question relates particularly to the immune system. The other question is what factors govern how aggressively the disease expresses itself in an individual? Why does it affect people so differently? This question relates primarily to the brain. Usually, our research involves patient samples to identify factors that associate with the disease. We then take our discoveries to the lab to examine them in detail and understand the underlying mechanisms.”

What do you hope to achieve?

“Ultimately, we want our research to contribute to new therapies that can halt or cure MS and that are more precise, thus much better tolerated by the patient than current treatments. But first we need a much better understanding of the disease. In a broader perspective, I also hope that our research will add to epigenetic knowledge of inflammatory, autoimmune and neurodegenerative processes more generally. The molecular mechanisms we’re studying are very general and therefore of relevance to many diseases.”