Director: Lauren Gluck, M.D. & Katharine McNeil, M.D.
The Neuroimmunology Division and this laboratory are dedicated to the analysis of the pathogenesis of the demyelinated plaque in MS. Seminal work on this topic has emerged from this group over the years, leading to the identification and functional analysis of immune cell types in the lesion, the analysis of mechanisms of myelin destruction and the integral role of antibodies in the process, the identification and roles of cytokines, chemokines and their receptors in the CNS during MS and the involvement of glutamate cytotoxicity in plaque formation. Our work has also proven key in the understanding of oligodendrocyte behavior in MS, particularly during myelin repair, and these studies were supplemented by parallel experiments on in vitro systems and animal models, especially experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). This laboratory also played a key role in the development of a number of models of EAE in different species and several strains of mice. Ongoing work is examining death receptor involvement in MS, oligodendrocyte gene expression in MS and EAE, chemokine and chemokine receptor expression during remyelination in MS and EAE. EAE in myelin/ oligodendrocyte gene knockout mice and in chemokine transgenic mice in which expression is targeted and inducible in specific cell types.
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Pathology Department at Einstein