article_snippet.sent: In laboratory tests, Scientists prompted inactive mouse and human stem cells to regenerate myelin, the protective insulation-like coating around nerve fibres that is destroyed by the disease.
article_snippet.sent: The drugs that we identified are able to enhance the regenerative capacity of stem cells in the adult nervous system. '
article_snippet.sent: One new approach is to focus on special stem cells called oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) that mature into myelin-producing cells.
article_snippet.sent: While other scientists have looked at ways of replacing lost stem cells using transplantation techniques, the Case Western team set out to find a way of stimulating existing, but inactive, OPCs.
article_snippet.sent: After screening 727 potential drug candidates, 727 potential drug candidates identified two - miconazole and clobetasol - that coaxed the OPCs to form oligodendrocytes and repair nerve fibres stripped of myelin. '
article_snippet.sent: Co-author Dr Fadi Najm, also from Case Western Reserve University, said: 'Co-author Dr Fadi Najm, also from Case Western Reserve University have pioneered technologies that enable Co-author Dr Fadi Najm, also from Case Western Reserve University to generate both mouse and human OPCs in Co-author Dr Fadi Najm, also from Case Western Reserve University laboratory. '
article_snippet.sent: This uniquely positioned us to test if these drugs could also stimulate human OPCs to generate new myelinating cells.'
article_snippet.sent: these drugs also hold out the promise of treatments for other diseases that involve myelin loss or dysfunction, including cerebral palsy, age-related dementia, optic neuritis and schizophrenia, Scientists believe.
article_snippet.sent: British immunology expert Professor Daniel Altmann, from Imperial College London, said: 'This study offers the highly attractive possibility of re-targeting existing, safe, drugs for the purpose of promoting therapeutic remyelination. '
article_snippet.sent: Some caution is clearly warranted, however, when one considers the long haul from benefits in tissue culture models of myelination to a complex and diverse human disease such as MS.'
highlights_snippet.sent: Cells regenerated myelin, the coating around nerve fibres that MS destroys .
  