DEMYELINATING DISEASES RESEARCH

Demyelinating Disease Research

Demyelinating Diseases Research, led by Clinical Professor Allan Kermode, is dedicated to investigating the causes of multiple sclerosis (MS) and improving the treatment and management of those suffering from MS and related diseases.

Research Focus

The research team is involved in a number of research projects to investigate the clinical profile of different subgroups of patients with demyelinating disease in Western Australia, including relapsing-remitting and primary progressive MS, optico-spinal forms (OSMS), neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and transverse myelitis, and the influence of HLA alleles and haplotypes on disease susceptibility and clinical and laboratory characteristics.

The team is working in collaboration with Professor F Christiansen and the Department of Clinical Immunology at the Royal Perth Hospital. New serological techniques for detecting antibodies to aquaporin-4 have been developed in collaboration with Professor P Hollingsworth and the Department of Clinical Immunology at the QEII Medical Centre and are being evaluated in the large cohort of patients in the Perth Demyelinating Diseases Database (PDDD) to determine what role this antibody has in the pathogenesis of these diseases. Collaboration with Professor S Mallal at the Institute for Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Murdoch University aims to investigate genetic epistasis and the interaction of viral infections in MS.

In addition, the Group has established important international collaborations with centres in Guangzhou at Sun Yat Sen University (Professor Wei Qiu) and with Kyushu University in Japan (Professor J-I Kira), and with the IMSGC, ANZGene, MSBase and the Progressive MS Alliance.

New forms of pharmacotherapy for patients with demyelinating disorders are being investigated and the Group is participating in international multi-centre therapeutic trials of new agents for the treatment of MS.