
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990                   TAG: 9005250251
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

MS STUDY LINKS SECOND CELL, DISEASE

Researchers in Boston say they have discovered a type of immune cell that may be one of the villains in multiple sclerosis, a brain disease that cripples young adults.

In a study to be published today in the journal Science, Dr. David A. Hafler of Harvard and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said his team isolated from the blood samples of multiple sclerosis patients a unique immune cell that attacks myelin, the nerve tissue that is destroyed by the disease.

Hafler, in a telephone interview, said the specific immune cell was isolated in high numbers from the blood of five multiple sclerosis patients, but was found in only very small numbers in the blood of five people who do not have MS.

He said it is very likely that other types of immune cells also are involved in the MS disease process, but that the cell found by his team may have a major role.

Another group, led by Dr. Lawrence Steinman of Stanford University, reported on Thursday in the journal Nature that they had isolated another type of immune cell from the brain tissue of MS patients.

- Associated Press

by CNB