Though science may speed along a bit fast to ‘catch’ on audio, you can also listen to me read this article on #MEAction’s Soundcloud here. We are pleased and proud to announce that our two research fellows, Sydney A. Brumfield and Paula S. Lara Mejia, have written and released their first professional science articles about
The end of September was a whirlwind! Between the CDC’s website work, the CDC’s awarding of a sole contract, the planning sessions for the NIH meeting, and the Stanford symposium, there wasn’t much time to devote to breaking down the science. If you’d like to see a quick run-down of what’s been going on lately
August was a mixed month in the world of ME research, with some truly innovative studies coming out and a few that needed another couple of rounds with the thesis advisor. Some great books and book chapters debuted — and we faced Afflicted, battling not only the usual stigma, but the directors’ framing of chronically ill patients
July was a big month for scientific research in ME! Many of the most well-known researchers and clinicians had papers this month including Klimas, Lipkin, Hornig, Levin, Peterson, Montoya, Julie Newton, Broderick, and Marshall-Gradisnik. There were studies in epigenetics, NK cell function, the HPA axis, robots for schoolchildren with ME, and a few interesting critiques
Biomarkers are a holy grail for ME/CFS because they have the potential to help diagnose disease, track disease progression or progress and help inform which treatments might help. The need for biomarkers is immense and researchers will identify many possible ones. It is encouraging that there have been more possible biomarker reports recently. It can be so hard
President Trump is proposing to cut the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by $6 billion – or about one-fifth of the total agency budget. A cut to the NIH budget will almost certainly impact funding for biomedical research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). Bipartisan members of Congress are circulating a letter that opposes this cut, and, instead,
Are you prepared for an 18% reduction in ME spending?
I’m not. For one thing, the first year of funding for the new Collaborative Research Centers is set aside in this year’s budget. But all bets are off going forward. Like many other RFAs, the one for ME Centers explicitly states, “Future year amounts will depend on annual appropriations.” So it is possible that future years of funding could be cut or eliminated.
Researchers from Queensland’s Griffith University recently identified a dysfunctional cell receptor in the immune system of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).
Fifteen people meeting the Fukuda criteria for CFS were studied, against 25 controls. Considering the small size of the study, the results cannot be considered definitive.
If the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) team is successful with its RFA application proposal, this funding would clearly help the institution to become a Collaborative Research Center, and would help to fund the analysis work involved in the Monster study – albeit slowly. If you’ve missed it, this study is not only about microbes and viruses; it was hugely expanded to include immunology, metabolomics, proteomics, genetics and epigentics.
A research team at Stanford gave an update yesterday on some of the breakthroughs its team has made in understanding the metabolic cycles that are not working properly in people with ME/CFS that might be at the heart of the disease. Ronald W. Davis, PhD, made the announcement via YouTube. Davis directs the CFS Research Center
