These early genetic markers may now be used to test for multiple sclerosis up to nine years before healthy young adults start developing symptoms. And because MS is thought to have a genetic component and a tendency to be found in siblings, Prof. Achiron says the biomarkers can be used as a tool for brothers and sisters of patients.

Why test in advance of a cure? "The idea is that we'll know more about the genetics of MS through this new discovery, with the hope that early intervention therapies may be more effective, and help advance medicine toward a cure," Prof. Achiron says.

By the time a person notices symptoms, significant and irreversible nerve damage is already done. MS is classified as an autoimmune disease that afflicts the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms vary, because the location and severity of each attack can be different, and until now, there has been no way of knowing who it will strike. The disease causes the body's immune system's T cells to mistakenly regard the myelin sheath around our body's neurons as foreign, so the immune system starts attacking the sheath, causing neurons to short circuit. The disease is more prelevent in cold climates and attacks twice as many women as men.

This new insight into who will develop MS in the future is a first on the path of finding a cure to the disease.

Two of the most important drugs that shorten multiple sclerosis attacks were developed in Israel, and Tel Aviv University is considered a center of excellence in MS research. Other researchers in the study include David Magalashvili and Anna Feldman of Tel Aviv University, and Drs. Itamar Grotto and Ran Balicer of the Israel Defence Forces.

Source: American Friends of Tel Aviv University