Strength to strength

The Trish MS Research Foundation funded the important work, ‘Enhancing brain activity to re-wrap nerve fibres’ of Associate Professor Kaylene Young at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, Tasmania in 2017-2019.

A/Prof Young’s inspiring research has gone from strength to strength.

A/Prof Young, along with Professor Bruce Taylor at the Menzies Institute of Medical Research, was awarded the MS Research Australia-Macquarie Group Foundation Paired Fellowship. This Paired Fellowship links together the work of a researcher and clinician in the field of MS.

In her laboratory research, Associate Professor Young found that a form of non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation can promote myelin growth in laboratory models of MS. A/Prof Young and Professor Taylor are continuing to work on the pre-clinical and clinical studies of non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation to promote myelin growth.

One of the aims of the Fellowship is to progress the work undertaken by A/Prof Young in this project and proceed to clinical trials to ultimately treat people with progressive forms of MS. A clinical trial has been launched to determine if the treatment is safe and effective for people with MS.

The progress that has been made on these studies is huge and exciting and we look forward to the outcomes. Other laboratory studies conducted as part of this Fellowship investigated the genetics of MS and how they impact myelin-producing cells in the brain. These lines of investigation will hopefully underpin the development of new treatments for people with progressive forms of MS.”

The Trish MS Research Foundation is proud to have earlier made a contribution to this very encouraging research.