Project BIG
Only in recent years have we recognized that the classically separate domains of neurology, immunology and microbiology could be interconnected in such profound ways. The answers to complex spectrum disorders like Multiple Sclerosis rest in our understanding of these interconnections.
Project BIG (Brain Immune Gut) aims to unlock the cause and cure for MS and other neurological and autoimmune disorders.
A BIG Initiative
The Stanford Multiple Sclerosis Center and Neuroimmunology Clinic has earned Institutional Review Board approval for PROJECT BIG: The Brain, Immune, Gut Research Initiative. Flipping the conventional scientific model inside out, this initiative positions the clinic as the central nexus for interdisciplinary collaboration and discovery.
“Over the years, individual cases of MS have been reported in great detail. But it wasn’t until physicians and researchers started to compare notes and share experiences that a unified view of multiple sclerosis emerged.
It’s important to look forward because the future of multiple sclerosis is one of hope.”
BIG Ambitions
The ability of PROJECT BIG to fund the clinicians who do the research, consent the patients, collect and process the samples, and provide these samples to the varying labs offers a “multiplier effect” in that lab costs are off-loaded to the clinical enterprise, the value of potential discovery and publication for the individual labs is increased and enriched, and samples are shared without walls to stimulate vital interdisciplinary understanding.