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Research fund granted to find early signs of multiple sclerosis
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Dr Belinda Kaskow, researcher at Murdoch University, has been announced as one of the latest recipients of the 2022 Incubator Grant from MS Australia.
MS Australia has announced its new round of incubator grants for ‘out-of-the-box’ Australian research projects that will explore innovative ways to prevent and treat multiple sclerosis (MS), including new research that will further explore the prevalence and incidence of MS in different parts of Australia.
This latest round of funding for the new MS research projects will see $180,000, distributed across four research projects and a postgraduate scholarship for an outstanding young researcher in the field of MS.
Dr Kaskow, who works at Murdoch's Centre for Molecular Medicine and Innovative Therapeutics and the Perron Institute, will investigate specific components of the immune system that may be involved in early signs of MS.
She said this will help identify how early this immune imbalance occurs and give critical insight into how the disease begins.
“Understanding immune system dysfunction at the earliest clinical time point to study MS allows us to better understand the disease course so that we can develop therapies to halt disease progression,” Dr Kaskow said.
MS is the most common acquired chronic neurological disease affecting young adults, often diagnosed between the ages of 20 to 40 and, in Australia, affects three times more women than men.
As yet, there is no cure. There is no known single cause of MS, but many genetic and environmental factors have been shown to contribute to its development.
Incubator grants support novel ideas, and the subsequent generation of preliminary data that may enable researchers to apply for larger grants in the future.
For more information about the researchers funded visit the MS Australia website.
Photo source and credit: Perron Institute
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