The International MS Microbiome Study is led by a Governance Group, which sets the long-term biomedical agenda, identifies and recruits collaborators, oversees budget and spending, and ultimately is responsible for delivering against the aims. Working groups made up of investigators with appropriate expertise will be responsible for ensuring that the individual project aims are met. Although the working groups will evolve over the course of this study, initially there are four working groups, focused on the following key areas:
- Subject recruitment and sample collection
- Development of mouse facilities
- Bacteria transfer into gnotobiotic mouse experiments
- Immune studies
Subsequent working groups will concentrate on data analysis, clinical trials, and other targeted projects.
Members
The iMSMS launched July 1st 2015 with 36 members from eight groups in four countries. Members bring expertise in many areas of MS and microbiome research, clinical evaluations, bioinformatics, project management, patient recruitment, sample processing and much more.