Research Letter in Nature

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Posted on 14 October 2011

The Multiple Sclerosis group at Keele, as part of the 'International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium', has been successful in publishing a Research Letter in Nature.

The Keele-based MS genetics group, led by Professor Clive Hawkins and Professor Richard Strange has been instrumental in study design, methodology and analysis of results from this large study.

Professor Hawkins has been an active and long-term member of the Consortium's Steering group contributing to the management throughout this complex project.  The Keele group supplied DNA samples from more than 800 Multiple Sclerosis patients together with considerable phenotype/genotype data collected over the previous 15 years.

The Genome-Wide Association Study involved almost 10,000 patients worldwide, of European descent with almost 500,000 markers (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms).  This seminal study has definitively identified more than 50 genes that determine Multiple Sclerosis risk.  This has greatly expanded our understanding of disease pathogenesis and, thereby opened new avenues for therapeutic intervention.

See: Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis', Nature, 11 August 2011; 476, issue 7359: pp214-219).

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