It is a privilege to share this year’s BARLO MS Centre Impact Report with you as we approach an important milestone: five years of care, discovery, education, and support for people living with multiple sclerosis.
Since BARLO opened its doors in August 2021, the support and unwavering commitment from our donor community has turned an ambitious vision into a world-leading centre where patient care, science, innovation, and education all move together side by side.
Five years is a short time in the life of a clinical research centre like BARLO. But in the life of a person living with MS, five years is a lifetime. Five years means navigating the uncertainty of symptoms, the shock of diagnosis, the search for treatment, and the fear of what may come next. Because of your generosity, those same five years also mean evidence-based care, trusted guidance, community, relief, and new hope grounded in science and innovation.
From the beginning, BARLO was built with patient care, education, and scientific innovation as its foundation. We wanted patients facing MS to have access to leading neurologists and to education, emotional support, advanced imaging, rehabilitation, research, and practical help for life at home.
Today, because of your support, BARLO is exactly that place. In the stories of this year’s Impact Report, you will see BARLO’s influence at its best: discoveries that bring us closer to stopping MS in its tracks, education and guidance that empowers patients facing a new diagnosis, practical support that helps families preserve safety and independence at home. Above all, you will see a remarkable community of people turning their own experience with MS into connection, generosity, and hope for others.
I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved together, but I know there is still much to do. We need better ways to predict MS before symptoms appear. We need treatments that protect people from relapses and from progression. We need to understand repair, resilience, disability, cognition, fatigue, mobility, and the many ways MS shapes daily life. We need to keep moving discoveries closer to patients, and patients closer to the science.
Your generosity gives us the resources and motivation to do that. Thank you for believing in this work. And thank you for helping us build BARLO, where discovery and compassion are part of the same promise.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Jiwon Oh, Medical Director
Waugh Family Chair in MS Research
BARLO MS Centre
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