 Sylvia Lawry, an extremely dynamic woman entirely committed to eradicating multiple sclerosis, established the US MS Society in 1946 after her younger brother was diagnosed with the disease. Then in 1948, with $25,000 seed money she helped set up the Canadian MS Society. MS societies started forming throughout Europe soon afterwards.
Two decades later, in 1967, delegates from 17 national MS societies met in the House of Lords in the UK to hammer out the final details of a constitution and by-laws for a federation of national societies to fight MS at an international level.
Shirley Temple Black was one of those original motivators and signatories to the new constitution. Now MSIF comprises 42 Member Societies, and its Secretariat is in regular contact with societies in over 30 other countries.
The dual fundamental purposes behind establishing an international movement were to share information and research and to stimulate the development of struggling national societies. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that MSIF’s major international research project is called The Sylvia Lawry Centre for Multiple Sclerosis Research.
MSIF is the Member Societies’ unified attack on MS reaching beyond national and regional boundaries. MS in Focus contributes to the international sharing of information in this global struggle.
The SLCMSR is MSIF’s key research project.
The project was set up, after stiff international competition, at the Institute of Statistics and Medical Epidemiology, Technical University of Munich, in February 2001.
The Centre relies on the effective combination of computer science, mathematics and medicine.
Its ambitious aim is to speed up the development of future MS therapies and in turn make them less costly.
Using mathematical models based on a collection of placebo data from clinical trials and natural history data, the SLCMSR’s first objective is to identify clinical and magnetic resonance imaging markers for the disease. Compared to current methods, these markers will predict more reliably how a person's MS will develop.
The SLCMSR has already collected and started to pool 41 data sets (over 14,000 patients and nearly 55,000 patient years). All the major MS-related pharmaceutical companies have contributed.
The project, currently unparalleled in medical research, is an excellent example of what can be achieved when industry and academics work together.
To find out more, visit Sylvia Lawry Centre for Multiple Sclerosis Research
By Leila Terry, Research Administrator, MSIF
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