About me
Dr Marzena Fabis-Pedrini is a Senior Research Fellow and an MS Research Coordinator in the area of Demyelinating Diseases at the Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science and Personalised Medicine Centre (formerly Centre for Molecular Medicine and Innovative Therapeutics). Dr Fabis-Pedrini is a mid-career researcher with a key focus on multiple sclerosis (MS) pathogenesis and related disorders including neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease (MOGAD). She is dedicated to investigating the causes of MS and improving the treatment and management of those suffering from MS and related diseases.
The focus of her work is on several research projects including the investigation of the clinical profile of different subgroups of patients with demyelinating diseases in Western Australia and, the influence of HLA alleles and haplotypes on disease susceptibility and clinical and laboratory characteristics. She is also investigating genetic epistasis and the interaction of viral (Epstein-Barr virus) and bacterial (Helicobacter pylori) infections in MS. Dr Fabis-Pedrini is involved in many multicentre projects including CLOBAS (Cladribine, a Multicenter, Long-term Efficacy and Biomarker Australian Study), PLATYPUS, STOP-MS, OCCAMS (The Open Coast to Coast Australian Multiple Sclerosis), PREGMOL (Pregnancy-Related Molecular Changes and their Impact on MS Outcomes), and others.
Before investigating MS from the clinical side, Dr Fabis-Pedrini focused her work on understanding the differences in the mechanisms responsible for peroxynitrite-dependent opening of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) during a central nervous system (CNS) immune/inflammatory response. The focus of her work was on 1) blood-brain barrier permeability changes and cell invasion in the therapeutic immune clearance of neurotrophic virus; 2) blood-brain barrier permeability changes and inflammatory response during experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of MS - EAE is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the CNS that is used to model certain parameters of multiple sclerosis, and 3) intervention against secondary neuronal injury in a mouse model of spinal cord injury by the inactivation of peroxynitrite-dependent radicals.