News Overview

New professorship awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) at DBE

8.5.18
Author: DBE, University of Basel

PD Dr. Cristina Granziera, member of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (University of Basel) located at Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area, gained a competitive professorship funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Despite significant progress in multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis and treatment, there remains the need to understand the interplay between axonal damage and repair in the brain of MS patients, which ultimately influence MS evolution and the accrual of disability. INsIDER (ImagiNg the Interplay between Axonal DamagE and Repair in Multiple Sclerosis) will combine advanced MRI techniques sensitive to axonal structure and organization to gain new insights into axonal damage and repair in MS.

Through machine-learning analysis of multiple advanced MRI data combined with demographic and genetic information, INsIDER will quantify axonal damage and repair both in living patients and in post-mortem samples of MS brains.

By doing this, INsIDER will provide new knowledge about the contribution of axonal damage and repair to MS progression and will allow to develop novel surrogate biomarkers to assess disease evolution and future neuroprotective and regenerative treatments.