Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to curing MS by determining its causes. Focused primarily on accelerating the pace of MS breakthroughs, Accelerated Cure Project seeks to remove obstacles to investigating the causes of MS and to facilitate collaboration between research organizations and clinicians.

Accelerated Cure Project's main effort is the creation of its MS Repository, the largest, openly accessible, multi-disciplinary collection of bio-samples ever assembled for use in Multiple Sclerosis research. Through its MS Repository program Accelerated Cure Project is collecting blood samples and data from thousands of subjects across the country and making them available to researchers investigating the causes of MS. Limited sample size is one of the most frequently cited reasons for inconclusive results in MS research. Accelerated Cure Project’s MS Repository is a solution to this problem by providing researchers with immediate access to a far greater number of samples than most could collect themselves. In exchange for access to the Repository, researchers agree to return the data they generate from the samples so that results from disparate experiments can be combined.

The MS Repository provides a common population of samples useful for many different types of research, such as research into genetic, viral, nutritional, toxic, and traumatic causes of MS. It enables the results of many different researchers and projects to be easily combined and correlated so we can uncover multiple factors working together to cause MS.

MS Repository collections are currently taking place at six leading MS clinics across the United States: University of Massachusetts Memorial Hospital (Worcester, MA), the MS Research Center of New York (New York City, NY), Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD), the Shepherd Center (Atlanta, GA), University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas, TX), and the Barrow Neurological Center (Phoenix, AZ).

Accelerated Cure Project is also creating and executing the Cure Map, its systematic plan for determining the causes of Multiple Sclerosis. By systematically analyzing the results of past MS research, identifying unaddressed areas of study, and designing and executing experiments to provide conclusive answers, Accelerated Cure Project believes it can direct MS research into more productive areas and ultimately determine what causes the disease. Furthermore, it can leverage the availability of its MS Repository to encourage the type of research the Cure Map reveals as necessary.

Art Mellor is the CEO, President, and co-founder of Accelerated Cure Project. A noted technology visionary and entrepreneur, Mr. Mellor was diagnosed with MS in 2000 at age 37 while in the midst of starting his third technology company. Frustrated by the limited amount of information available about the causes of MS, and by the lack of a clearly defined, comprehensive plan to cure the disease, he left the commercial world in 2001 and started the organization (originally under the name Boston Cure Project) in conjunction with his neurologist, Dr. Timothy Vartanian, Chief of the Department on Demyelinating Diseases at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Accelerated Cure Project's scientific advisory board includes an impressive list of top MS clinicians and researchers from such prestigious institutions as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Johns Hopkins MS Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, University of California San Francisco, and the National Institute of Health.

For more information, visit www.acceleratedcure.org, email info@acceleratedcure.org, or contact the organization by phone at 781/487-0008. To make a corporate or individual donation, send checks, made payable to Accelerated Cure Project, to: Accelerated Cure Project, 300 Fifth Avenue, Waltham, MA 02451. Credit card contributions may be made on-line at www.acceleratedcure.org. Our tax ID number is 04-3555864.