Sanne Verberk – publication in Frontiers in Immunology on the role of macrophage ACLY in regulating inflammatory responses and disease outcomes

Our second paper on ATP citrate lyase (Acly) is published in Frontiers in Immunology!

In our previous paper we showed beneficial effects of targeting macrophage-specific Acly in the context of atherosclerosis. Here, we showed that despite a marked regulation of inflammatory responses in vitro, macrophage Acly deficiency does not translate into huge alterations in other acute and chronic inflammatory disorders in vivo.

Lynn van Olst – Meningeal inflammation in multiple sclerosis induces phenotypic changes in cortical microglia that differentially associate with neurodegeneration

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common chronic neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory disease in young adults and despite availability of many disease-modifying therapies most patients will eventually develop secondary progressive MS. Here, we uncovered two distinct MS-specific phenotypes of brain resident immune cells, microglia, that are driven by local meningeal inflammation and differentially associate with neuronal damage. Results suggest that these phenotypes may occur sequentially during chronic meningeal inflammation and that microglia lose their protective properties over time, leading to neuronal loss. Hence, timely targeting of the processes contributing to microglial activation in the progressive MS cortex provides an interesting therapeutic strategy to combat progressive MS.

 

 

The management of the MS Center Amsterdam will change as of April, 2021

In addition to general director professor Bernard Uitdehaag, professor Elga de Vries will join the newly established executive board as scientific director. Besides the two directors senior researchers from seven different departments where MS research is performed will form the general board of the MS Center Amsterdam.

 

Managing board

Professor Bernard Uitdehaag, neurologist and chair of the department of Neurology at Amsterdam UMC, has been director of MS Center Amsterdam since 2013. From April 1, he will be joined for the daily management by professor Elga de Vries. She has been at Amsterdam UMC since 2000 as a neuro-immunological researcher in the department of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology. Her research group Neuro-immunology focuses on unraveling disease mechanisms of MS at a cellular level in order to find new targets for treatments.

 

General Board

The general board consists of eight senior researchers from seven departments within Amsterdam UMC. Their task is to jointly provide the vision and mission of the MS Center Amsterdam and a draw a strategy to achieve set goals.

 

Members general board

·         prof. dr. Jeroen Geurts, Anatomy and Neuroscience

·         prof. dr. Vincent de Groot, Rehabilitation medicine

·         prof. dr. Joep Killestein, Neurology

·         prof. dr. Charlotte Teunissen, Clinical chemistry

·         prof. dr. Bernard Uitdehaag, Neurology

·         prof. dr. Paul van der Valk, Pathology

·         dr. ir. Hugo Vrenken, Radiology and nuclear medicine

·         prof. dr. Elga de Vries, Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology

 

MS Center Amsterdam Office

The managing and general board will be supported by the MS Center Amsterdam Office.

·         dr. Annette van der Goes

·         Karin Husken