Dear Donors,
Dear Friends of the Belgian Charcot Foundation,

On behalf of the Board of Directors, and in a personal capacity, I would like to express my warmest thanks for your loyalty and continued trust. Thanks to your generosity, the Belgian Charcot Foundation is able to fulfil its core mission, namely  to promote excellence in multiple sclerosis research in Belgium, always keeping it as close as possible to the needs of those living with the disease.

This new special edition presents six award-winning projects, rigorously selected by our scientific panel for their quality, originality, and potential impact. A clear common theme emerges this year: the need to understand and control better inflammation “at the very heart of the nervous system,” where the disease develops and progresses. 

Several research teams are seeking to grasp what happens once inflammation reaches the brain: why immune cells that are meant to protect become dysregulated, how certain cells may aggravate lesions or, conversely, contribute to their repair, and how these inflammatory signals might be calmed through more precisely targeted treatments.

Other projects focus on identifying measurable indicators that could help predict the course of the disease more accurately, as well as on factors that influence multiple sclerosis — such as the Epstein–Barr virus or the relationship between the gut, the immune system, and the brain so as to move towards more personalised care.

Behind each of these projects are dedicated researchers, bold hypotheses, and a shared ambition: to turn knowledge into tangible solutions — to detect more effectively, to predict more accurately, to treat more precisely, and to repair more successfully. Your support makes this possible. Year after year, you remain a vital link in this chain of progress and we thank you.

I wish you an enjoyable and enlightening reading of the presentations and interviews that follow, and would like to extend  my warmest regards to you with sincere gratitude.

Professor Bénédicte Dubois
President – Belgian Charcot Foundation