An American neurologist and an Italian epidemiologist whose work revolutionized the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) on Saturday won a prestigious Breakthrough Prize, nicknamed the “Oscars of science.”
Stephen Hauser and Alberto Ascherio were recognized for their decades researching the debilitating neurodegenerative disease, which affects nearly 3 million people worldwide and was long considered an impenetrable enigma.
Hauser’s work on MS started more than 45 years ago, when he met Andrea, “an extraordinarily talented young woman who was already an attorney” and working at the White House under then-US president Jimmy Carter, he said.
Photo: AFP
“Then MS appeared in an explosive fashion and destroyed her life,” he said.
“I remember seeing her, unable to speak, paralyzed on the right side, unable to swallow and soon, unable to breathe on her own, and I remember thinking that this was the most unfair thing I had ever seen in medicine,” he said.
Then 27 years old, he decided to make it his life’s work.
Photo: AFP
“At the time, we had no treatments for MS. In fact, there was also a pessimism that treatments could ever be developed,” said Hauser, now 74 and director of the neuroscience institute at the University of California, San Francisco.
Scientists knew the disease, which damages the central nervous system and leads to paralyzing cognitive and motor problems, was caused by the immune system turning on the body.
However, they thought the white blood cells known as T cells were the lone culprit.
Studying the role played in the disease by B cells, another type of white blood cell, Hauser and his colleagues recreated the damage MS causes to the human nervous system in marmosets.
The US federal body overseeing medical research dismissed the link as “biologically implausible,” and turned down their application for funding for a clinical trial, but Hauser and his team pressed on.
They persuaded pharmaceutical company Genentech to back testing.
In 2006, they found that treatments targeting B cells were associated with “a dramatic, more than 90-percent reduction in brain inflammation,” Hauser said.
That threw open a door to bring new treatments to market that slow the advance of the disease in many people.
However, it raised other questions. For example, what would cause white blood cells to turn against the body?
That puzzled Ascherio, now a professor at Harvard University.
He investigated why MS mostly affected people in the northern hemisphere.
“The geographical distribution of MS was quite striking,” he said. “MS is very uncommon in tropical countries and near the equator.”
He and his team carried out a long-term study following millions of young US military recruits.
After nearly 20 years of research, they came up with an answer. In 2022, they confirmed a link between MS and the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a common infection responsible for another well-known disease, infectious mononucleosis, or mono.
“Most people infected with EBV will never develop MS,” but everyone who develops MS has had EBV first, Ascherio, 72, said.
The discovery did not explain why MS occurs, but it fueled hope of finding new treatments and preventive measures for a disease that remains incurable.
Ascherio’s breakthrough could also help treat other conditions.
“We are now trying also to extend our investigation, to investigate the role of viral infection in other neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,” also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, he said.
The link remains theoretical, but “there is some evidence,” he said.
“It’s like where we were on MS 20 or 30 years ago,” he added.
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
RSS