Background

Neurological disorders are a global burden and a public health challenge. Among them, demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) are characterised by any condition that leads to damage of the insulating and protective myelin sheathing surrounding neuronal axons in the brain and spinal cord. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common demyelinating disorder, and there are an estimated 2.8 million people living with MS. Moreover, recent studies suggest that myelin dysfunction is an upstream risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease (Depp et al., Nature., 2023), a neurodegenerative disease expected to affect 138 million people by 2050.

To date, there are no approved remyelinating therapies for such conditions. This is mostly attributable to the lack of reliable myelination models.