Personalized Treatment May Be on the Horizon for Sufferers of Multiple Sclerosis

The drive to develop personalized treatment for chronic diseases is not limited to cancer, and a recent publication described a significant advance with the identification of two genes related to a positive response to Copaxone by multiple sclerosis sufferers.

Copaxone (glatiramer acetate) is a synthetic medication made of four amino acids that are found in myelin. This drug stimulates T cells in the body's immune system to change from harmful, pro-inflammatory agents to beneficial anti-inflammatory agents that work to reduce inflammation at lesion sites. It is also possible that the mixture of amino acids act as a sort of decoy, thus allowing myelin to regenerate. Glatiramer acetate has been shown in clinical trials to reduce the number and severity of exacerbations and reduce the number of new brain lesions on MRI scans.

Investigators at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel) along with colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (Petach Tikva, Israel) analyzed the DNA sequences in 27 candidate genes from each patient participating in a Copaxone clinical trial. They reported in the August 2007 issue of Pharmacogenetics and Genomics that they had identified two genes with a high potential for determining the response to Copaxone. The genetic linkage was confined to the group that was treated with the drug and was not found in the control group that received a placebo.

Until now, medical treatments for all kinds of diseases have relied on trial and error methods to determine dosage and treatment protocols, said senior author Dr. Ariel Miller professor of Medicine at the Technion. But the process of fixing the correct dosage affects the efficacy of the treatment and can lead to complications in some cases. In the future, it may be possible to use this method to scan the genome of MS sufferers, to predict the response levels in advance, and to optimize the dosage and treatment protocol to suit each patient personally.


Related Links:
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Weizmann Institute of Science
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries