Rogue cells - key to MS rescue

Issue 19 | Autumn/Winter 2007

Report: Andrew Shaw
Photography: Greg Ford

Professor Claude Bernard

Researchers at the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Labs have received a US$500,000 grant to investigate treatments for multiple sclerosis. Professor Claude Bernard is part of the team that will look at how myelin-producing stem cells and the thymus gland can work together to combat MS...

Professor Claude Bernard proudly watches a video of a small brown mouse. It moves around its cage looking for food - a healthy, unremarkable mouse.

It should have a type of rodent multiple sclerosis, a disease that affects the central nervous system, but it doesn't. It has no trouble moving, thanks to an injection in its thymus gland that 'inoculated' it against the disease before exposure.

The mouse is part of Professor Bernard's research at the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Labs - research that recently received a US$500,000 boost from the US Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The three-year program will investigate two questions: how to stop the body's own white blood cells attacking the protective myelin coating around nerves (the cause of MS); and how to coax stem cells into becoming myelin cells, thereby repairing the damage.

Professor Bernard explains although the initial triggers that activate the disease remain unknown, many studies suggest the body's immune system can play a role in the progression of MS.

"Normally the immune system defends the body from attack by foreign pathogens such as viruses or bacteria," he says.

Professor Bernard hopes to find a way to make these rogue T-cells able to distinguish between the body's own myelin and, say, a virus.

"We are taking several novel approaches to reactivate or reconstitute the thymus gland in mouse models of relapsing-remitting and primary progressive forms of MS."

Born in Paris, the son of a hospital director, Professor Bernard became interested in science and discovery from an early age. He pored over the dictionary for new words that could lead to new observations, new things to explore in the world outside. "I was fascinated by anything to do with science," he says.

This fascination took him to the Sorbonne, and later to the Hôpital Saint-Antoine in Paris. Here, he became interested in the answer to a simple question: Why are foetuses, which contain foreign material from the father, not rejected by the mother?

"This is like MS, or rheumatic arthritis, or insulin dependent diabetes, but in reverse," he explains. "In those diseases the immune system should protect you, but it doesn't. It attacks you."

Stem cell legislation passed by the Australian Senate late last year may go some way to stopping the research brain drain to the US and the UK.

Professor Bernard is cautiously optimistic about the Australian situation. "I think we have made some progress in the last few months," he says. "Certainly there is some progress left to be done."

He points out the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is currently awarding $3 billion in grants, while UK laws permit researchers to create a stem cell culture of a diseased patient to study the effects of chemical treatments in the laboratory.

This cutting edge technology is not permitted in Australia. But despite these restraints, Professor Bernard remains philosophical. He says there must be controls, and these should reflect society as a whole.

"As people become more informed, they will understand the potential benefit," he suggests, "but there are a lot of serious ethical considerations that we need to respect."

Meanwhile, he says Monash is in a position to reap the benefits of progressive legislative change.

"Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Labs is a unique research centre in the world. It brings together specialists in immunology, in stem cells, biology and auto-immunity. This is very important, since among the many problems we face with transplantation of stem cells is the possibility of rejection. Understanding the way this occurs may offer us better therapeutic avenues."

Professor Bernard is justifiably proud of his team's experimental achievements with mice. It's a first step on a journey that could one day produce a cure.