Ari Green, MD, MCR: Remyelination in Multiple Sclerosis

“The capacity to screen drugs that are capable of permitting or forcing those OPCs to differentiate, that’s the new method of development. That screening methodology that identified new drugs and whole new areas of biology has matured in the last 5 years or so, and that’s what’s really led to new identification of drugs and then the first drugs being tested in people.”

One of the next big goals for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) is the development of therapies that induce or promote remyelination—repairing the damage to the central nervous system done by the disease.

Ari Green, MD, MCR, the medical director of the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center and director of the UCSF Neurodiagnostics Center, works closely with colleagues on this exact goal. His belief is not only that this method could work, but based on his experience, he believes certain approaches may work better than others.

At the 34th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) annual meeting in Berlin, Germany, Green sat with NeurologyLive to discuss the idea behind remyelination, and to share his thoughts on what the best shot at developing a therapy might be.