Our team has interests covering multiple sclerosis, stroke, migraine and Parkinson's disease. Projects completed to date include a phase II clinical trial of Cpn10 in multiple sclerosis, creation of a self-reported questionnaire for headache and migraine for use in epidemiological studies, a study of flow rates through spinal needles and a study in Parkinson's disease looking at blink rates.
Our current projects include an epidemiological, case-control, survey of autoimmune disease in patients with multiple sclerosis and their relatives, validation of the Griffith University Headache Questionnaire, the CogniMS study, studies of the effect of fatigue on balance in multiple sclerosis and surveys of headache, eye and hair colour and ancestral origin in multiple sclerosis. In conjunction with the Genomics Research Centre and several other centres around Australia we have recently joined the Multiple Sclerosis GeneBank collaboration, which hopes to pool resources in the ongoing effort to solve the genetic factors involved in multiple sclerosis.
This project is being funded by Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia as one of its key platforms within the Epidemiology and Genetics Institute. Future directions include potential collaborations with the Eskitis Institute to look at stem cell populations in multiple sclerosis and further phase II and III clinical trials of novel therapies for multiple sclerosis.
Researchers involved in this program include Associate Professor Simon Broadley, Dr Max Williams, Ms Sharon Quinlan, Mrs Sue Freeman, Ms Nicola Stroud, and Dr Helen Cavanaugh.