From Tribune News Services June 6, 2000

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Researchers said Monday that they had harnessed the immune system to help repair nerves in mice in an experiment they said may one day mean a treatment for multiple sclerosis and similar diseases.

They said they had found antibodies that could call in forces to help repair the fatty myelin sheath that surrounds nerves.

In their experimental mice, this process reversed the damage done by multiple sclerosis, said Dr. Moses Rodriguez, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "The immune system plays a critical role in the repair of the nervous system," Rodriguez said in atelephone interview.

Rodriguez warned that it would be years before such a treatment could be tried in people.