A Search for Virus in Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

It is the stepwise accumulation of scientific information that allows the rare breakthrough which forever changes our understanding of a disease process. This paper begins with a review of the history of great experiments initiated in the 1960s which showed that multiple chronic neurological diseases were transmissible and in some instances were caused by a virus. Such an historical perspective combined with the rationale for the viral etiology of MS described herein, led Dr. Hilary Koprowski to organize a team of clinicians, pathologists, cell biologists, virologists, and immunologists to obtain MS brain, propagate MS brain cells in tissue culture, and to analyze cells for productive or latent infection. No virus was found with the state-of-the-art techniques available in the 1970s. However, currently available molecular biologic strategies and techniques allow virus detection not possible 30 years ago. These studies could confirm Dr. Koprowski's prophetic vision and identify the virus that causes MS, including the mechanism by which demyelination is produced.