A variety of therapeutic approaches aimed towards promoting myelin repair in multiple sclerosis and in other demyelinating diseases are now on the brink of clinical implementation. In this article, the extensive experimental studies of the past 2 decades, and in particular the considerable progress made over the last 12 months, will be briefly reviewed. A number of hurdles remain, together with practical and ethical problems which may be more difficult to solve; nevertheless, increasing excitement is apparent in this novel therapeutic field, and the rapid progress emerging from these laboratory based studies justifies a cautious optimism towards the successful translation of remyelination strategies from experimental neurobiology to clinical neurology.