Neuromyelitis Optica Consortium Act

Neuromyelitis Optica Consortium Act

This bill amends the Public Health Service Act to require the National Institutes of Health to establish, administer, and coordinate a national consortium on neuromyelitis optica (NMO), which is a neurological disease that can cause blindness and paralysis. The consortium must:

• award grants for research on the causes of, and the risk factors and biomarkers associated with, NMO;
• assemble a panel of experts to provide guidance and recommendations on research design and protocols; and
• designate a central laboratory to collect and analyze data from this research and to make the data and analysis available to researchers.