Educational Session at ECTRIMS 2025

On the role of EBV in MS

Posted on May 6, 2025  •  2 minutes  • 385 words

We are excited that this year’s ECTRIMS congress, taking place in Barcelona from the September 24-26, will feature an educational session on the “Epstein Barr-Virus in Multiple Sclerosis: Where are we? Where should we go?” chaired by Dr. Jan Lünemann from Münster and Dr. Marianna Cortese from Boston. This educational session will take place September 24 from 8:30 to 9:30 am and will be a joint initiative between the BEHIND-MS project and the EBV-MS project , two ambitious EU-funded consortia focused on elucidating the role of EBV infection in the onset and progression of MS.

The educational session will bring together clinicians, physician scientists, and researchers in the field of MS for an interdisciplinary meeting aimed to exchange the newest research findings, facilitate future collaborations and foster alignment of current and future efforts in EBV-related MS research.

The session will feature short lectures on the relationship between MS and EBV by leading experts in the field:

• Marianna Cortese, Senior Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston will present about: “EBV in MS: guilty by association? Insights from epidemiological studies”

• Jan Lünemann, Professor of Neurology at the University of Münster will speak about: “Immune control of EBV infection: what is different in people with MS?"

• Øivind Torkildsen, Professor of Neurology at the University of Bergen will present on: “Targeting EBV infection for treatment and prevention of MS: fact or fiction?”

During the subsequent panel discussion, the attendees can dive deep into the evidence for a causal role of EBV infection in MS and discuss how EBV-targeting adaptive immune responses potentially modulate disease susceptibility and progression. The insights gained from these studies might facilitate not only the development of prevention strategies but also more effective treatments for MS to benefit patients worldwide.
We warmly invite you to join us at ECTRIMS this year for this exciting session exploring the newest expertise on the role of EBV infection for MS.

The session will take place on the 24th of September though details on this session are still being finalized. You can register and stay updated with all news on: www.ectrims.eu/ectrims2025/ . (Deadline for early bird registration: 30th of July 2025).

For more information on the EBV-focused EU-consortia BEHIND-MS and EBV-MS, please visit www.behind-ms.eu and www.uib.no/en/ebvms .