Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the second most common cause of neurological injury in young adults after trauma. MS affects around 3 million people worldwide and, although MS treatments have improved greatly, there are currently no therapies to reverse MS damage once it has occurred.
In this project, Dr Rodrigo Albors with her team and collaborators will investigate how the spiny mouse (called Acomys) successfully regenerates its brain after injury similar to MS, and will compare this to what happens in poorly regenerative human brains. This understanding will then be used to help guide new strategies for repairing the human brain.
Following rigorous assessment as part of our competitive grant funding round, this project was recommended for its promising approach to understanding how the brain can regenerate after injury.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the second most common cause of neurological injury in young adults after trauma. MS affects around 3 million people worldwide, and although MS treatments have improved greatly, there are no therapies to reverse MS damage once it has occurred. Over 100,000 people in the UK have MS, and MS causes around 1,500 deaths in the UK every year.
In MS, brain injury causes damage to the cells that produce myelin, a fatty substance that wraps around nerves helping them conduct nerve impulses and protecting them from damage. This process (called ‘demyelination’) causes MS relapses, and if myelin is not repaired, the underlying nerves die, causing permanent disability. Sometimes, myelin can be repaired (this is called ‘remyelination’). However, in humans, remyelination is inefficient, especially with increasing age.
Some animals recover from a range of injuries better than humans. For example, the spiny mouse (Acomys) is very efficient at recovering from brain and spinal cord injury, but we don’t currently understand why. This project aims to find out how Acomys successfully regenerates its brain after brain injury similar to MS, to help guide new treatments for repairing the human brain after MS has occurred.
Acomys is the only mammal known to regenerate complex tissues and recover from a large brain injury. In this project, Dr Rodrigo Albors and her team will use Acomys to explore how adult brain stem cells work in the healthy and injured brains of a mammal that can successfully regenerate. First, the team will use cutting-edge technology that can capture virtually every gene produced inside individual cells to map out the cells that make up the spiny mouse brain (including stem cells) and predict their functions. Then, the team will study how these cells respond to damage and how they can restore lost cells efficiently. Finally, by comparing the response of these cells to injury in humans, Dr Rodrigo Albors and her team will uncover what lies behind the unique regenerative capacity of Acomys.
This research will be an exciting step towards understanding how brain regeneration can successfully occur in mammals, and the team will then use this information to move towards activating similar regenerative processes to treat human brain injuries and diseases.
Over 100,000 people in the UK have MS, and MS causes around 1,500 deaths in the UK every year. Although MS treatments have improved greatly, there are no therapies to reverse MS damage once it has occurred.
This project will develop the first model of MS in a regenerative mammal, thereby increasing our understanding of mammalian brain regeneration, which will in turn enable us to find new ways of repairing the human brain after neurological injury.
The use of animals is essential to understand how the most complex organ – the brain – works, and to understand what goes wrong in diseases such as MS. In this project, the team will use the spiny mouse because their brains contain the same building blocks as human brains but, unlike human brains, can recover from brain injury.
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Dr Aida Rodrigo Albors is a junior group leader at The University of Edinburgh who specialises in understanding why some animals can regenerate while others cannot. She oversees the UK’s only Acomys research colony, a key asset for this project.
Dr Rodrigo Albors will collaborate with three world-class scientists who bring exceptional complementary expertise. Professor Anna Williams, also at The University of Edinburgh, is a neurologist renowned for her multiple sclerosis work. Her clinical and research experience is crucial for developing accurate models using Acomys. Professor Barbara Treutlein (ETH Zurich) is a world leader in single-cell genomics with vast experience in cross-species comparisons. She and her PhD student Mateja Soretić will be vital in uncovering new biological insights in complex data sets and formulating testable hypotheses during the project. Professor Fiona Doetsch (University of Basel) and research associate Dr Ana Delgado add extensive expertise in brain stem cells in mammals, further strengthening the team's capabilities.
Acquired brain and spinal cord injury (including stroke) is one of our current research priorities, reflecting the large unmet need in this area. Our aim is to fund research to advance understanding of how to promote repair of the brain and spinal cord following injury.
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Find out about our other research in this area:
