About 2.8 million worldwide are affected by multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune demyelinating disease of the CNS affecting 1 in every 400 people in Canada alone. The disease is marked by cumulative or recurrent cognitive impairments resulting from multifocal leukocyte infiltrations, demyelination and axonal damage. Autoreactive immune responses directed against myelin peptides on oligodendrocytes are thought to mediate the so-called MS “plaques”.

The laboratory of Dr Alexandre Prat, we study early events leading to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration: the disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and the resulting infiltration of leukocytes into the central nervous system (CNS). 

Our goals are to: 

1. decipher the immunological roles of the BBB in MS; 
2. elucidate the mechanisms of leukocytes migration across endothelial barriers; 
3. describe the regulatory pathways of the pathological leukocytes during neuroinflammation; 
4. identify prognostic biomarkers predicting disease progression; 
5. assessing new therapeutic targets that have the potential to restrict the migration of leucocytes in the CNS.