Biomedical scientists from a range of disciplines met for a two-day workshop in Bristol on 13 and 14 April to discuss the ME/CFS “Grand Challenge” project, which plans to use a “big data” approach to the biochemistry of the illness and determine whether it is, as suspected, several different diseases. The study will be the biggest
Dr Charles Shepherd of the ME Association has announced that the UK’s ME/CFS Biobank is now ready to send blood samples to researchers anywhere in the world. The biobank is run by a team headed by Dr Luis Nacul at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and forms part of the main University
The spring meeting of the US CFS Advisory Committee (CFSAC) will take place on Tuesday May 17 and Wednesday May 18 from noon to 5pm (Eastern Time) and will be both livestreamed and available to listen to by telephone. The committee provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on
Australian researchers have found an abnormal centre in the brain which may explain problems with the signalling around the body.
Professor Vincent Racianello of Columbia University has said of the PACE trial controversy, “I think they are going to ignore, obfuscate, and give their usual responses until we are all dead. I don’t have hope that the PACE authors, or Lancet, will respond in any meaningful way until there is more of an outcry.” Racianello’s
ME/CFS patient and science blogger Simon McGrath has produced a patient-friendly version of a recent peer-reviewed editorial on the disease that appeared in the science journal Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior. The article, titled The biological challenge of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: a solvable problem, became Fatigue’s most-read paper ever within a week of publication, with over 3700 views as
This year’s conference of the International Association for CFS/ME (IACFS/ME) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on 27–30 October will include speeches by Dr. Walter Koroshetz and Dr. Øystein Fluge. Dr Koroshetz, who is Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and head of the Trans-NIH ME/CFS Working Group, will give the conference’s keynote
In Dr. Albright’s study of the families of ME/CFS patients in Utah, risk of ME was found to be 2.7 times greater in first-degree relatives of ME patients, 2.3 times greater in second-degree relatives, and 1.93 times greater in third-degree relatives. This familial clustering is the basis for new research in Norway, where scientists are
Dr Kenneth J. Friedman will discuss the CFS Advisory Committee’s (CFSAC’s) upcoming proposal for ME/CFS Centers of Excellence and will explain what patients can do to make such centers a reality, in an online TV panel show on May 12. The one-hour show, which covers ME/CFS and Lyme Disease, will be broadcast on Channel 17
A new study was published recently in the journal Chronic Illness, entitled Housebound versus nonhousebound patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome by Pendergrast et al. The authors of the paper included the well-known ME/CFS researchers Julia L. Newton and Leonard Jason. Newton is most often recognized for her studies in muscular function in
