Multiple sclerosis: emerging opportunities for therapeutic intervention

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. Two of the major therapies for the treatment of MS, interferon-beta and glatiramer acetate, show only limited evidence that long-term treatment slows disability. There is a great need for new drugs that will halt, reverse, and prevent the development of MS. This article reviews therapies currently in use and describes innovative strategies being developed to alter the disease course. New technologies in gene expression profiling offer hopeful directions toward the design of successful drug therapies and diagnostic testing for MS. Additionally, the new fields of genomics and proteomics offer the promise of novel treatments, and should help to reveal the mechanisms of disease initiation and pathological progression.