Research breakthroughs continue to fuel the treatments and solutions that will stop the disease in its tracks, restore what has been lost, and end MS forever.
About this Program
The National MS Society funds cutting-edge research, drives change through advocacy, facilitates professional education, collaborates with MS organizations around the world, and provides services designed to help people with MS and their families move their lives forward.
•The Society is a global leader in MS research, recognized as the catalyst for all major advancements in MS.
• It brings the world together through the International Progressive MS Alliance to end progressive MS, with a total investment of $14.1 million to date to accelerate the pace of progressive MS research.
• The Society’s groundbreaking 2011-2015 research campaign launched more promising MS research and drove more progress toward life-changing solutions for people with MS than any other time in history.
• The Society has provided early career support and funding to every recognized MS expert.
• It is the largest private funder of MS research in the world; having invested more than $924 million to date, with an investment of $42 million funding 380 research projects in 2016 alone.
• Two large-scale trials have broken through a long-standing barrier, leading to the first therapy for progressive MS.
• The Society has convened an international collaboration to investigate gut microbiome, determine factors that may drive MS progression, and develop probiotic strategies for stopping progression.
• Society-supported researchers and others showed progress toward identifying therapies that can protect the nervous system from damage and even repair myelin.
• In 2016, the Society launched two wellness-related studies of dietary approaches for MS, including a commitment of over $1 million to support a clinical trial at the University of Iowa led by Terry Wahls, MD, to compare the ability of two popular diets to treat MS-related fatigue.
• The Society cosponsored a meeting that convened experts for an International Conference on Cell-Based Therapy for MS to explore the potential of many types of stem cells for slowing MS disease activity and repairing damage to the nervous system.
The Society is united in our collective power to do something about MS now and end this disease forever.
