Introducing #OMFScienceWednesday! Every Wednesday, our Research Liaison Raeka Aiyar from Stanford University will post on Facebook about the science that OMF is supporting: background on key areas, updates on the latest research, explanations of topics relevant to ME/CFS… be sure to like our Facebook page so you don’t miss out!
To start with, what do we mean when we say ME/CFS is a molecular disease, and why is that helpful for research? Molecular biology involves DNA, RNA, metabolites, proteins, cytokines – and there is evidence that so many of these are involved in ME/CFS. Molecular biology presents new opportunities to study ME/CFS: this is the golden era of molecular technologies, like genomics and other ‘omics’ (transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics) that allow us to measure the full set of these molecules produced by the body, cheaply and effectively. These studies can help us to understand how the disease works – for example, which viruses may trigger it or whether genetics may increase your risk – and to identify molecular biomarkers that are clearly different in patients compared to healthy people, which may be useful in diagnosing ME/CFS. Finally, molecular biology will hopefully lead to new molecular treatments: knowing which molecules are out of balance could point to ways to treat ME/CFS.