Killam Seminar Series: Aging Mechanisms and Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

Shalina Sheryl Ousman

Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Neurosicence, Université Laval

Aging Mechanisms and Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract: Despite the availability of over twenty disease modifying therapies for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, most people with multiple sclerosis (MS) still progress to a devastatingly disabling form called progressive MS. The scarcity of medications for progressive MS is due to our lack of understanding of the underlying mechanisms and etiologic triggers that cause axonal loss and demyelination that drive the progression of disability. Because age is the only factor to date that correlates with progression in MS, my lab is investigating if mechanisms of aging such as the gut microbiota and autophagy are etiologic triggers that contribute to neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative pathologies that drive MS progression.

Bio: Shalina Ousman is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Clinical Neurosciences and, Cell Biology & Anatomy at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary. Shalina Ousman completed her PhD in Neurosciences in 2001 with Dr. Samuel David at McGill University followed by two postdoctoral fellowships, the first with Dr. Iain Campbell in the Department of Neuropharmacology at The Scripps Research Institute (2001-2004) and the second with Dr. Lawrence Steinman in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University (2007-2008). She joined the Hotchkiss Brain Institute in 2008. Shalina Ousman is interested in identifying endogenous protective mechanisms in multiple sclerosis and peripheral nerve regeneration. Her research is funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research and Multiple Sclerosis Canada.