The International MS Genetics Consortium (IMSGC) consists of a core group of nine senior investigators with world-class expertise in genetics, database design/construction, and clinical assessment and immunology of MS. The IMSGC meets monthly by telephone. The IMSGC has published its first paper, reporting that when genetic material collected in five studies was re-analyzed using advanced technology, a considerable amount of new information was extracted (Human Molecular Genetics Advance Access published online on July 6, 2004).

Complex data collection and analysis is at the heart of this collaboration, requiring the processing of thousands of sequences of genetic material, which must be linked to the comprehensive clinical picture for each patient. The group has focused on establishing an “informatics group” to collect, store and analyze data. A renowned MS genetics group at Duke University is collecting the actual genetic material and analyzing these samples. Several hundred have been logged already. At Harvard, the team has begun to develop measures for routinely monitoring immune system activity in people with MS. Experts at Vanderbilt University are developing a database that will collect all the project data and make it accessible to collaborators, and eventually, other researchers. 

Links to our collaborators in the International MS Genetics Consortium:

• Brigham and Women's Hospital MS Center
• Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard
• Cambridge University, England
• Duke University
• University of California San Francisco
• Vanderbilt University

• David Reich's Laboratory of Statistical Genetics