In May 2008 an independent advisory panel met to review progress resulting in a formal recommendation to the MS Society’s Board of Trustees to continue funding the final two years of the research programme. The board also supported a request for an additional £100,000 to cover increases in the cost of consumables and essential equipment for the remaining part of the programme.

The Panel were unanimous in their support for the Cambridge Centre for Myelin Repair and commented that the quality of work has been, and continues to be, of a very high standard. They emphasised that the Cambridge Centre represents good value for money for the MS Society.

The panel were satisfied that the milestones set in the original application have been satisfactorily met and future milestones remain relevant to the field of research.

Some advances so far from the Cambridge Centre include:

• Development of more predictive ways of testing potential remyelination enhancing therapies

• Insights into how demyelinated nerve fibres are damaged

• Direct evidence for the importance of remyelination in protecting nerve fibres

• Application of powerful gene discovery technology to help understand how remyelination works

• Preliminary evidence of potential new drug targets for enhancing remyelination