- In March 2025, MS Australia announced their latest $5.7 million research grant round for 35 new research initiatives into MS prevention, treatment and cures.
- Florey researchers Ms Michele Binder, Professor Trevor Kilpatrick, Dr Vivien Li and Associate Professor Justin Rubio have received a combined total of nearly $1 million towards their MS research at The Florey.
“Harnessing the brain’s healing power” to treat and prevent MS
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. MS causes the immune system, which usually protects the body, to attack the brain and spinal cord instead.
It is the most common neurodegenerative disease in young adults, often diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, and affects nerve impulses within the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.
Four Florey researchers have been selected as grant recipients in MS Australia’s latest $5.7 million research investment towards advancing better treatments, prevention and cures for MS.
The announcement marks MS Australia’s largest funding round by number of projects, supporting 35 new research initiatives.
Investigating microglia and remyelination in MS
Current MS drugs treat the inflammation and reduce symptoms but do not treat the underlying and ongoing damage to nerves, which can result in functional decline.
Ms Michele Binder, Head of The Florey’s Multiple Sclerosis and Myelin Repair Group, alongside her team, discovered that a type of immune cell in the brain (microglia) can promote the repair of myelin to protect nerves.
Current MS treatments don’t treat damage to the nerves, which can lead to functional decline. Using this finding, Ms Binder and her team aim to develop a new therapy to protect neurons in people with MS and reduce their chance of future disability.
Testing a new approach to treating multiple sclerosis
Professor Trevor Kilpatrick, neurologist-researcher at The Florey, will lead a project that investigates how MERTK – a risk gene for MS – affects disease progression, and identify which patients may benefit from treatments targeting this protein.
The team will investigate by examining blood samples from people with MS, and laboratory models to see how changes in MERTK influence MS symptoms, such as weakness and loss of coordination.
The aim of this research is to enable clinicians to select more effective treatments and potentially reduce side effects for individuals with specific versions of the MERTK protein.
Taking cellular therapy to treat MS toward clinical testing
Dr Vivien Li and her team are aiming to develop a new way to treat MS using a person’s blood immune cells.
By treating these cells with anti-inflammatory signals, and re-administering them to the person living with MS, the team hopes to target and dampen the immune cells that cause inflammation and nerve cell damage in MS.
The research offers a new therapeutic approach by targeting key initiating events in MS, and could treat both relapsing and progressive MS.
Dr Vivien Li is a neurologist-researcher based at The Florey. This project continues her existing work toward clinical translation.
Using human genomics to identify drug targets for progressive MS
Associate Professor Justin Rubio’s research aims to address a major obstacle that has slowed the development of therapies that could protect or repair the brain in progressive MS.
Associate Professor Rubio’s team recently discovered that brain cells in MS lesions accumulate genetic mutations much faster than normal. This discovery suggests that certain genetic changes in the brain may influence how MS progresses.
The team will build upon these findings, using advanced methods to analyse genetic mutations, gene expression, and regulation in the brain. The hope is that this work could pave the way for new therapies that protect brain cells and slow MS progression.
Associate Professor Rubio leads The Florey’s Neurogenetics Group.
