Additionally, Barca’s study (Barca et al., 2003) found that IFN-β promotes astrocyte survival by stimulating the PI3K/AKT pathway, and thus concluded that the beneficial effect of IFN-β in MS may depend partially on its ability to protect astrocytes from apoptotic cell death at the early stage of MS. The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is myeloid sarcoma.