Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to curing MS by determining its causes.
Its major success so far is the creation of a large-scale, multidisciplinary MS Repository of blood samples and data from people with MS and matched controls. With the help of funds raised by efforts like Music to Cure MS, samples are being collected at sites across the United States.
These samples are currently being used by 25 studies investigating the causes of MS. In exchange for access to the repository, researchers agree to return the data they generate from the samples so that results from disparate experiments can be combined.
Accelerated Cure Project is also developing a Cure Map to establish and document what is and is not known about the causes of MS. Using the Cure Map, Accelerated Cure Project is facilitating the research most likely to reveal the causes of MS in the shortest time through use of the MS Repository.
About Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, is a chronic demyelinating disorder of the central nervous system affecting over 400,000 people in the US and 2 million individuals worldwide.
In MS, for an unknown reason the immune system attacks myelin, a material which insulates the nerves of the central and autonomic nervous systems, ultimately leaving multiple "sclera" - scars - on the lining of the nerves.
Much as sap rises directly under the bark of a tree, nerves transmit their electrical impulses directly beneath that insulating myelin sheath. When the sheath is damaged, "short circuits" occur, and the signal is broken or scrambled.
This affects the entire Central Nervous System - brain and spine - with results that are varied and unpredictable, differing for each patient, and even from day to day in the same patient.
Symptoms include sensory (e.g. touch, kinesthesia and vision), motor, and cognitive (including emotional) problems, affecting all parts of the body and mind. Meanwhile, the brain itself - gray matter as well as white nerve cells - shrinks as injury accumulates.
MS commonly results in disability, including the inability to walk, impaired vision or blindness, cognitive dysfunction, bladder and bowel problems, disabling fatigue and other serious symptoms. Unfortunately, no one knows what causes Multiple Sclerosis, there is no known cure for the disease, and treatments are modest at best. The Accelerated Cure Project is one step towards finding a better way to treat, and ultimately to cure, this disease.
For more information about the Accelerated Cure Project or to make a corporate or individual contribution, call 781/487-0008, or visit www.accelerated cure.org.
Click on the Sign Up button on the top of every Accelerated Cure Project web page to sign up for their email list.
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