By Gretchen Berland, M.D., in the New England Journal of Medicine. Access to this article is free.

Berland is a documentary-filmmaker-turned-internist as well as an assistant professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. She recently completed a lengthy project that culminated in the film “Rolling,” documenting the lives of three people in wheelchairs in Los Angeles. Berland gave her subjects videocameras with which to explore the activities, thoughts and perspectives of their daily lives, and compiled more than 200 hours of material into a single narrative.

An excerpt from her account of the project:

The participants filmed events related to their passions: basketball, camping, disability rights, music …

Moments of extraordinary frustration were also recorded, a scene captured by [Vicki] Elman being a striking example. After 20 years of living with multiple sclerosis, Elman required a power wheelchair. One afternoon, her regular public-transportation service picked her up from an event, and during the ride home, her wheelchair stalled inside the van. (more…)

From New York Newsday:

In what is being hailed as a genetic bonanza, scientists have pinpointed two key DNA variants that elevate the risk of multiple sclerosis.

Since 1868 when the degenerative neurological disorder was first described, medical investigators have tried to shed light on its underlying cause. And even now with the announcement of two genetic discoveries — the first in more than three decades — scientists say they still have years to go before they fully understand MS.

From the Times (UK): Genetic breakthrough offers MS sufferers hope of new treatment

Also in the Washington Post and elsewhere.

Scientists reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine report that three genes will offer new understanding to multiple sclerosis and may lead to new treatments. Skeptics among us will be forgiven for remembering that scientists had the same idea half a century ago, after French geneticist Jerome Lejeune identified the triple 21st chromosome in Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). And have new treatments for Down syndrome materialized? Nope. There are, however, lots of very profitable prenatal screens and tests that are widely used to prevent the births of infants with Down syndrome.