Did you know the UMass MS Center was the first MS comprehensive care center named in New England by the National MS Society.
Due to the patient care structure under the guidance of Peter Riskind, MD, PhD, who joined UMass in 1998, the program has continued to evolve and flourish under the leadership of Dr. Ionete and her leadership team.
The UMass Chan Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Division Center directed by Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD, professor of neurology, is a comprehensive care center providing access, to clinical and basic science research as well as exceptional treatment care, to patients who live outside of the Boston region in Worcester County and western Massachusetts.
Dr. Riskind grew the center, with his vision for a holistic and comprehensive care clinic, to provide diverse patient treatment solutions. Dr. Ionete has expanded on the holistic approach for the MS Center with a continued focus on clinical and translational research, community outreach, clinical support, and education.
The UMass MS Center was recognized by the National MS Society due to its rapid growth, doubling in size every year. The specialized treatment team includes urologists, ophthalmologists, psychiatrists, rheumatologists, and other specialty care physicians who have expertise in immuno-therapies, available MS treatment medications, and knowledge of reading patient MRI results, to pursue a thorough patient evaluation by reviewing the patient’s clinical symptomatology to provide a proper diagnose, apart from other diseases that mimic MS, such as Lupus or vasculitis. Patients continue to return to the UMass MS Center for treatments related to neuroimmunology and the conditions causing inflammation in their nervous system.
Due to the program’s success and a passion for preparing future physicians interested in studying the immune system’s impact on the nervous system, a training program was implemented in 2002 for clinical neuroimmunologist specialists in MS. The program was a non-ACGME accredited program.
The UMass Neuroimmunology and MS Fellowship program was established as one of two programs approved to receive a five-year training grant from the National MS Society. This benefit provided training to one fellowship candidate a year for five years. Dr. Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD, the current director of the Neuroimmunology and MS Center was the first fellowship graduate to complete the UMass Neuroimmunology Fellowship program under Dr. Riskind tutelage.
The fellowship program is designed to develop master clinicians and clinical and translational investigators. It offers rotations with a variety of different specialties such as rheumatology, psychiatry, neuro-ophthalmology, neuroradiology, neurology, biostatistics, epidemiology, and immunology, outside of neurology to gain clinical skills and enable neurologists to become top-rate diagnosticians for inflammatory conditions of the brain. Currently, twelve master clinicians have gone through the UMass Chan Neuroimmunology Fellowship Program, and two fellows are currently enrolled.
The MS Fellowship program continues to educate aspiring physicians under the direction of Idanis Berrios Morales, MD, Neuroimmunology Fellowship Director, assistant professor of neurology, and prior graduate of the UMass Neuroimmunology Fellowship program. Dr. Berrios Morales joined the division in 2017 after completing the fellowship program. She is the associate director of education in the division, a student house mentor, an extraordinary teacher with experience training in the care of MS patients and a clinical researcher and PI in the division. Under Dr. Berrios Morales’ direction, five trainees have completed the fellowship program, and two others are expected to graduate over the next two years, Dr. Molly Wilner and Dr. Agnes Bacopulos.
The Neuroimmunology and MS Division is extremely proud to have two fellows for the next two years, Dr. Molly Wilner, 2 year fellowship with 1 year clinical and 1 year research year track.
Molly Wilner, DO, Neuroimmunology and Digital Medicine Fellow supports patients in the MS Center, enrolls and assesses patients in clinical trials and is working to have an FDA-approved MS medication added to the UMass formulary. Dr. Wilner joined UMass as an intern before participating in the Neurology Residency program, and as a current fellow in the UMass Neuroimmunology Fellowship Program.
Dr. Wilner merged her interests with neuroimmunology and digital medicine in a new IRB approved study to investigate the use of digital wellness applications with the MS patient population. Her interests have developed toward teaching and leadership as she hopes to continue guiding residents and medical students while also expanding the use of holistic care for patients with neuro-immunologic disease to maintain their independence and physical abilities. Currently, Dr. Wilner is teaching medical students in the clinic and leading third year students through neurologic case discussions and simulations. Dr. Wilner shares, “I appreciate getting to have dedicated time to do clinical work and study neuroimmunology diseases in a center of excellence with an incredible faculty team. I find it rewarding to see my patients more consistently compared to residency. It has been wonderful to have a co-fellow to learn with.”
Dr. Agnes Bacopulos, MD is currently completing her one-year clinical MS/Neuroimmunology Fellowship. Her interests include reproductive health and care in patients with Multiple Sclerosis and neuroimmunology diseases. She also provides comprehensive care with services including Botox for migraines for spasticity, migraines as well as nerve block.
The team is proud to share that Agnes Bacopulos, MD, a projected 2025 fellowship graduate will join the Department of Neurology and the Neuroimmunology Division as a faculty physician in August 2025.
Dr. Ionete and the Neuroimmunology team continue to acknowledge and respond to the ever-changing needs in health care. In July 2020, the division opened the new service line creating the Headache Clinic, which provides clinical care and research to find treatment solutions for our patients.
In 2024, the division opened a half day clinic, the ME/CFS, Chronic Fatigue Clinic. Joshua Claunch, MD, joined the MS Center to support patients with neuro-immune disease, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Long COVID, for which there are no FDA-approved treatments. The ME/CFS Clinic treats patients who have experienced the mechanisms of autoimmune demyelination involving the central nervous system. As a neuropsychiatrist, he utilizes an interdisciplinary care approach to develop holistic treatment approaches and lifestyle recommendations to support the patient’s journey and their quality of life. Dr. Claunch is interested in pursuing research goals to provide opportunities to modulate neuroimmunology risks for patients with long-covid, or cognitive dysfunction. Dr. Claunch shares, “There is so much untapped potential with care growth with guided holistic treatments.”
The current Neuroimmunology and MS Division includes five physicians, Dr. Carolina Ionete, Dr. Roberto Bomprezzi, Dr. Christopher Hemond, Dr. Idanis Berrios Morales, Dr. Joshua Claunch, and incoming Dr. Bacopulos, four of whom are fulltime faculty, one clinical research coordinator, and two postdoc physicians, a neuropsychiatrist, and an array of qualified clinic administrative professionals.
Dr. Roberto Bomprezzi, MD, PhD, associate professor, and associate clinical director, joined the division in 2014. Dr. Bomprezzi is a well-recognized faculty, clinical researcher and PI on multiple clinical trials in MS. He is a skilled and experienced neurologist with high academic medicine interests from teaching to basic science research.
Dr. Ionete has grown the MS Center’s leadership team with physician specialists within UMass Chan, and UMass Memorial Health. She has also expanded the division’s national and international professional research and clinical collaborations, and community support. The MS Center’s clinical team participates in community events such as the annual Worcester Walk MS to raise resources and awareness for local MS patients. Dr. Ionete is the clinical chair of CMSC Board of Governers Clinical Care Committe Chair, Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers, since 2022. Through this role, Dr. Ionete has developed a new mechanism to fund MS fellowships that will begin this academic year.
Morna Larson, senior administrative assistant supports the UMass MS Center shares, “Supporting Neuroimmunology and the MS Center team is exciting. I enjoy being a part of the team, who works to provide exceptional patient care and develop research to help find a cure. The annual symposium is an amazing opportunity to learn about the updates and promising research being presented, which has led to giving patients hope, and improve their quality of life over the past ten years, and in the future.”
Morna has supported UMass in administrative support roles since 1994, spending most of her time working for Division 40 in Finance. When covid came along, she had the opportunity to join the clinical side of neurology supporting the MS Center, Headache, Neurology Rehab, and the ICU intensivist group.
Dr. Ionete continues to partner with the National MS Society through the UMass Memorial MS Center for the greater western Massachusetts’s growing MS community. In collaboration with the National MS Society, her team provides patients with resources to support their ability to receive healthcare.
Shanna McCabe of The National MS Society shares, “Our annual Walk MS event is expanding, with 750+ participants expected this year, compared to 700 last year. Our organization collaborates with the UMass MS Center to offer a local support group in Worcester, meeting monthly, with 10-15 people affected by MS gathering in person. Additional support groups in the greater Worcester area also serve a similar number of attendees. The Society maintains formal Partners in MS Care partnerships with two local providers: UMass Memorial Health MS Center and 810 MS Specialty Center in Northborough. These partnerships aim to support practice needs and connect patients with resources to improve their quality of life. Additionally, the UMass MS Center will also host our 2025 Clinical Medical Student Mentorship program, where first-year medical students will learn comprehensive MS management, including early signs, diagnostic criteria, and career opportunities.”
Dr. Ionete’ s research has allowed her to establish a biorepository of biological samples through the UMass MS Center since 2010. The Ionete Lab has been collecting biological samples from MS patients for the past 15 years. These samples have been used in multiple collaborative detections for biomarkers toward more specific MS diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment response for MS patients. There are numbers of national and international academic centers that Dr. Ionete’s team collaborates with, and multiple papers and national and international presentations used to biorepository data to display the results from their research findings.
Her vision for collaborative research has continued to evolve with the annual MS Symposiums. This program represents current progress of the collaborative research efforts within UMass and with outside providers for MS and neuroimmunology research. In 2025, Dr. Ionete hosted her tenth annual MS Symposium. Dr Riskind praised Dr. Ionete and her vision to start the annual symposium program stating, “There was a precedent of running programs that were educational programs for patients and for physicians. Dr. Ionete changed it. She improved it.”
Christopher Hemond, MD, neuroimmunology associate research director, and assistant professor of neurology, joined the division in 2018. Dr. Hemond has received several NMMS pilot research awards as both PI (2019) and co-PI (2020). He is a recipient of a K23 NIH award as well.
He is the principal investigator of Hemond Lab, and investigates the neuroimaging science of MS. His investigations seek to understand lab imaging of MRI scans and linking biomarker results from databases such as the Ionete Lab’s UMass biorepository.
Dr. Hemond shares, “Our physicians focus almost exclusively on subspecialty care; we see more than 5,000 patients for neuro-immunological evaluations annually. This high capacity allows us to be a leader in both clinical trial participation and as a pioneer in original research, often aimed at the development of novel imaging and fluid biomarkers. The MS center supports a robust interdisciplinary research team to facilitate research communication, sample collection, and coordination of research MRI scans.”
Dr. Ionete’ s mission and focus for the Neuroimmunology and MS Division involves clinical research activities through clinical trials and studies, and investigator-initiated research built within the healthcare community. The team supports the MS Center’s clinical trial programs, typically funded by industry companies with the support of clinical research coordinators who partner with open clinical trial opportunities by enrolling patients and tracking their progress during the trial. Currently, the MS Center is participating in 25 clinical trials and studies, managed by the clinical research team, Nimmy Francis, MD, PhD, and Mariana Kurban, MD, PhD, post-doctoral research associates, and Mugdha Deshpande, clinical research coordinator.
With investigator-led research, neurology research labs share how valuable Dr. Ionete’s vision for collaborative research has been in their research initiatives.
The Chan Lim Lab conducts research using the biological resources provided through the UMass MS Center’s biorepository managed by Carolina Ionete of Ionete Lab. Rigel Chan, PhD, assistant professor of neurology has collaborated with Ionete Lab and utilizes the biorepository to access cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples for antibody epitope characterization for the purpose of understanding and developing MS biomarkers to enable their research in discovering and understanding antibody-based MS biomarkers.
Dr. Chan shares, “In our research, we employed an unbiased bacteria peptide library screen from Serimmune, a company specialized in generating such data, to map potential antibody epitopes associated with MS from a library of viruses as well as cell surface proteins of the central nervous system. Briefly, the Serimmune uses a small volume of CSF sample (~30 microliter), incubate the CSF sample with the bacteria E.coli library and select for only antibody-bounded bacteria. These bacteria are then lysed and sequenced using next-generation sequencing technology to determine the identity of these epitopes. Because the library is a random peptide library, we are able to use innovative bioinformatics to map the epitopes to viruses as well as cell surface proteins and identify the associated epitopes. In the future, we plan to also characterize the antibodies from patient's serum samples to see if they match the antibodies discovered from CSF samples.”
The Neuroimmune Interactions Laboratory led by JeanPierre SchatzmannPerone, PhD, collaborates with Ionete Lab and Hemond Lab to investigate the mechanisms that initiate or drive the progression of MS, a complex disease characterized by demyelination driven by oligodendrocyte cell death, ultimately leading to neuronal loss and brain atrophy. Dr. SchatzmannPerone’s lab has benefited from the invaluable collaboration with Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD, and Christopher Hemond, MD. Currently, Natalia, a visiting PhD student under the mentorship of Dr. Alessandro de Farias from UNICAMP in Brazil, is exploring the critical role of brain-infiltrating cytotoxic CD4+ T cells in the formation of MS lesions. Additionally, Bianca, a medical student, is investigating how astrocytes—key cells that support neuronal function—are affected by toxic or pro-inflammatory factors present in the cerebrospinal fluid of MS patients. Both projects benefit immensely from the invaluable collaboration with Dr. Carolina Ionete and Dr. Christopher Hemond, whose expertise and contributions have been instrumental. The projects are also made possible by the extraordinary biorepository established by Drs. Ionete and Hemond, providing essential patient samples that are critical for our studies.
Dr. SchatzmannPeron shares, “It has been an absolute privilege to work alongside these outstanding collaborators, and we are thrilled with the progress and insights our research is generating. Together, we hope to advance our understanding of MS and contribute to the development of new therapeutic strategies.”
Veronica Peschansky, MD, PhD, assistant professor in neurology, and clinical faculty researcher in the neurocritical care division, 2 Lakeside, neurotrauma intensive care unit (ICU) with UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Health, is beginning a collaborative research effort with Carolina Ionete’s group and the UMass MS Clinic biorepository as well as the neurobiology laboratory led by Rigel Chan.
Dr. Peschansky's clinical focus is on caring for critically ill patients with brain injury, including trauma, severe strokes and brain hemorrhages and supporting the multiple organ systems that can be impacted by these injuries. Her research interest centers on understanding recovery from neurocritical illness: many brain-injured patients are in a coma or have a decreased level of consciousness. An important question in the field is how to identify patients with the potential to improve their wakefulness and awareness, so that they may reconnect with their loved ones and regain their livelihoods.
“If you understand consciousness, you can understand how we interact with the world - so the brain is everything to me.”
The MS Center Biorepository has been banking biological samples from both patients with neurological illness and healthy controls for many years. Dr. Peschansky will be contributing a population of samples from patients with traumatic brain injury with impaired consciousness or coma. The goal of this project is to investigate epigenetic markers that distinguish those with persistently impaired consciousness after traumatic brain injury from those who regain consciousness. Epigenetics provides a view of how our bodies use our genome in a particular cell type at a particular time. By measuring the expression of RNA transcripts longitudinally, Dr. Peschansky hopes to develop predictive biomarkers and gain insight into novel biological mechanisms responsible for recovery of consciousness after traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Peschansky shares, “Working with Carolina’s biorepository will be very helpful because they have such a well-established mechanism for obtaining samples from both patients and controls for research purposes. Adding traumatic brain injury to the list of diseases represented in the biobank will hopefully expand the breadth of work that our group and our collaborators are able to do. Also, Rigel’s expertise in molecular biology will be invaluable in conducting the gene expression and other epigenetic analyses.” We look forward to seeing the results of this exciting work!
The Neuroimmunology and MS Division work is a team effort. Without each branch of the Neuroimmunology and MS Division, the work would not be as successful as it is. Working as a team allows the division to continue to grow, flourish and be successful. Dr. Ionete wishes to thank everyone working within the clinical, research and school system for their participation in supporting the division’s mission to provide extraordinary patient care and collaborative research to find a cure for MS.