Prof. Sandra Vukusic has been named the 2026 recipient of the Rachel Horne Prize for Women's Research in MS.

In this special episode of the ECTRIMS Podcast, Sandra joins prize founder Rachel Horne and host Brett Drummond to mark the announcement and explore the research behind the recognition.

Sandra reflects on a career dedicated to improving the health and care of women living with multiple sclerosis, beginning with early research into pregnancy and postpartum relapse and evolving to encompass family planning, disease-modifying treatment, breastfeeding, menopause and wider aspects of women's health.

The conversation explores important evidence that women living with MS may be undertreated compared with men, including the potential influence of anticipated pregnancy on treatment decisions. Sandra also discusses how advances in research are helping women living with MS make choices about treatment and family life that were once considered impossible.

Rachel shares why she established the Rachel Horne Prize, the persistent gaps she saw in research addressing women's health in MS, and her hope that one day women's health will simply be an integral part of MS research and care.

A special conversation celebrating scientific achievement, progress — and the work still to come.

In this episode of the ECTRIMS Podcast, host Brett Drummond speaks with Prof. Jeremy Chataway of University College London and Prof. Daniel Ontaneda of Cleveland Clinic about multi-arm, multi-stage clinical trials and their potential to make MS research more efficient and responsive.

The episode comes at an especially timely moment. This week, interim results from the OCTOPUS trial showed that alpha-lipoic acid will progress to the next stage of the trial, while the metformin arm will be stopped. These results provide an early demonstration of the adaptive approach discussed in this episode — although the conversation itself was recorded before the interim results were available.

Together, they discuss:

• How multi-arm, multi-stage trials differ from traditional clinical trial designs
• Why these approaches could be particularly valuable in progressive multiple sclerosis
• How a single trial framework can allow promising treatments to advance while less promising approaches are stopped
• The potential benefits for recruitment, participant experience and reducing the time between trial phases
• The statistical and practical challenges involved in designing and running these complex studies
• How interim outcomes, imaging and biomarkers could help identify promising treatments earlier
• What the OCTOPUS trial is investigating — and how its design is being used to evaluate potential treatments for progressive MS
• Whether the same approach could be used to accelerate the development of remyelination and repair therapies

As the first OCTOPUS interim results now show, the adaptive design discussed in this episode is not simply theoretical. This episode offers a particularly relevant look at the thinking behind the trial and the methodology being used to determine which treatments should move forward and which should not.

This podcast episode is supported by an educational grant from Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Diseases, Bristol Myers Squibb, Roche, Sanofi, and UCB. Educational grant providers have no input into the podcast series content.

The blood–brain barrier is a highly specialised interface that regulates the movement of cells, molecules and nutrients between the circulation and the central nervous system.

But what happens when this critical barrier becomes dysfunctional in multiple sclerosis?

In this episode of the ECTRIMS Podcast, host Brett Drummond speaks with Prof. Elga de Vries of Amsterdam UMC and MS Center Amsterdam about the evolving science of blood–brain barrier dysfunction in MS.

They explore how the blood–brain barrier functions in health, how its disruption relates to immune cell infiltration and inflammatory disease activity, and why research increasingly suggests these changes may remain relevant across different stages of MS.

The conversation also looks at innovative blood–brain barrier-on-a-chip models, how existing MS treatments interact with the barrier, and emerging approaches designed to transport therapies more effectively into the CNS.

Finally, they consider an intriguing future direction: could strengthening the blood–brain barrier itself become part of the therapeutic strategy for MS?

This podcast episode is supported by an educational grant from Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Diseases, Bristol Myers Squibb, Roche, Sanofi, and UCB.