The scientific sessions at AAN 2021 were pretty devoid of exciting new developments (not surprising given COVID19), but did present updates on the use of BTK (Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase) inhibitors in multiple sclerosis (MS). For those of you who hearing this term for the first time today, BTK inhibitors target both B cells in the periphery and resident microglia in the brain (see slide...
Smouldering MS: Is 20 years a long time?
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer: zero stars or one ★ depending on your disposition I prepared this post not knowing that Prof. Laura Airas has submitted a guest post in response to a request from the Mouse Doctor. Before reading this post please make sure you read her blog post first. It provides an important counterbalance to my contrarian view below. Thank you. More than 20 years ago, when I was...
Chronic lesion activity in MS as seen on MRI
If you’d asked an year ago on whether I though MRI had a role beyond diagnosis in MS? My answer would have been an emphatic ‘NO’. The Achilles heel of MRI has always been the difficulty of standardizing scanning techniques to a large scale population level and adapting these accurately to work seamlessly during the day-to-day shortcomings of clinical imaging facilities within...
Katerina Akassoglou
Did you enjoy ACTRIMS? On Thursday evening I had the privilege of being at the Barancik Prize award ceremony and lecture. Katerina Akassoglou received the award for her work on the blood-brain barrier and fibrin as a pro-inflammatory agent of the innate immune system. Her lecture was a tour de force on what a single individual with dedication and focus can achieve. Well done. I was particularly...