(Waltham MA. October 1, 2009) On Saturday, October 17, leading MS researchers from around the country will meet at the Hyatt Regency, Boston to evaluate the feasibility of conducting what would be the largest clinical study ever undertaken to explore the role that Vitamin D may play in Multiple Sclerosis. The meeting will be led by Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, deputy director of the MS program and director of the new Transverse Myelitis and Neuromyelitis Optica Program at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and is being organized under the auspices of the nonprofit organization Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis.

Vitamin D is of particular interest to MS physicians and researchers, since previous epidemiological and laboratory studies have produced strong evidence that low vitamin D levels may play a role in causing MS. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the feasibility of designing a large-scale study around vitamin D supplementation to evaluate its potential effects early in the course of the disease. This study would also result in the banking of thousands of additional blood samples into the Accelerated Cure Project’s MS sample and data repository for future use in understanding the causes and disease mechanisms of MS.

The Accelerated Cure Project for MS has spent the past three years building the world’s largest shared multidisciplinary collection of biological samples and data from people with MS and other demyelinating diseases, as well as control subjects. In addition to supporting individual research efforts around the world with these samples, the Accelerated Cure Project is committed to orchestrating studies such as this one that it believes can “accelerate the cure by determining the cause.”

About Accelerated Cure Project
Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis, www.acceleratedcure.org, is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to curing Multiple Sclerosis (MS) by determining its causes. Accelerated Cure Project believes this effort can be accelerated by organizing the research process and encouraging collaboration between research organizations and clinicians. A "Cure Map" is currently being developed by the Accelerated Cure Project to establish what is known and what is not known about the causes of MS. From the Cure Map, Accelerated Cure Project will facilitate research most likely to reveal the causes of MS in the shortest time through a large-scale, multidisciplinary, MS Repository. For more information about the Accelerated Cure Project or to make a corporate or individual donation, call 781/487-0008, visit www.acceleratedcure.org, or [email protected].