Australian researcher wins top US research award

Prof Trevor Kilpatrick, one of Australia’s leading MS researchers, has been awarded the 2010 Stephen C. Reingold Research Award by the National MS Society (NMSS) of the USA.

The award recognises Prof Kilpatrick’s outstanding achievement in submitting the most meritorious research grant proposal reviewed by the Society’s scientific advisors during the previous year. The Reingold Award is named after the former head of Research Programs at the Society who retired in 2005 after 22 years of dedication to MS.

Prof Kilpatrick’s research proposal to the NMMS aims to design a method to measure the extent that nerve fibres, particularly the optic nerve, is protected. The method will be vital for use in future clinical trials as a rapid, and accessible method to assess the efficacy of the treatment.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is caused by immune attack on the central nervous system (CNS), resulting in loss of the insulating material that surrounds nerve cells, as well as a degree of loss of the nerve cells themselves. Measuring the way electrical signals travel along the nerves can indicate the extent of nerve damage. Several partially effective therapies are available for MS, however, a hurdle in developing new therapies for the central nervous system is methods to adequately test them. This study aims to investigate a number of measures that could potentially assess the damage in the optic nerve, a commonly affected structure in MS.

The NMMS awarded Prof Kilpatrick a grant of $225,245 over 3 years for this application, and the research commenced in October 2010