Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis collects 1000 blood samples for collaborative research

29 April 2008

The Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis has announced that they have completed a drive to collect one thousand blood and data samples to build the largest openly accessible, multidisciplinary repository ever assembled for use in multiple sclerosis (MS) research.

"This is a major milestone for the Accelerated Cure Project", says Art Mellor, founder of the Accelerated Cure Project. "Limited sample size is one of the most frequently cited reasons for inconclusive results in MS research. Our repository provides researchers with immediate access to a far greater number of samples than most scientists could collect themselves."

In addition, the repository will provide a common population of samples useful for a wide variety of different studies, which will enable results from different research perspectives to be easily combined and correlated. The repository contains various types of samples and data that can support scientists working in many fields — genetics, nutrition, virology, and more. Researchers gaining access to the repository must return their results to the database to be shared with other researchers; this will allow cross-correlation of their results with all other studies performed using the same samples.

Subjects enrolled in the repository will be followed over time to allow new samples to be taken and to record important changes in clinical status. Studying the same sample population over time, and pooling knowledge in a central database, is a major step toward understanding what causes MS, thereby accelerating a cure.

Collection sites

Research centres that have joined the Project as collection sites for the repository include: Johns Hopkins Medical Center (Baltimore, MD), University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center (Worcester, MA), University of Texas Southwestern (Dallas, TX), Multiple Sclerosis Research Center of New York (New York, NY), Barrow Neurological Institute (Phoenix, AZ) and the Shepherd Center (Atlanta, GA).

The Accelerated Cure Project intends to continue collecting samples from as many as 10,000 subjects for its MS Repository. The project is inviting people in the US that have MS (or another demyelinating disease) or are related to someone with MS to participate in the project: visit www.acceleratedcure.org/repository, or send an email to

For further information on the project see www.acceleratedcure.org

About multiple sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic demyelinating disorder of the central nervous system that often results in severe disability including the inability to walk, blindness, cognitive dysfunction, extreme fatigue and other serious symptoms. MS affects over 400,000 people in the US and 2 million individuals worldwide. The disorder occurs twice as often in women as in men. The cause is not known and there is no known cure.

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