Welcome to the ME/CFS Research Review blog, which aims to explain the most promising biomedical findings — and ignore pretty much everything else. So there will be occasional, in-depth blogs explaining the science in the studies, and what the findings mean.

I’m Simon McGrath and I’m a bit of a science nerd. A long time ago, I did a biochemistry degree at Oxford University, fully intending to become a boffin. I even had the opportunity to do a PhD there, but decided to do something else with my life. That something was rudely interrupted by ME/CFS over 20 years ago.

At the time, I thought that science would soon provide the answers to my illness. Instead, I discovered that the standard of research was often very poor and some studies were seemingly driven more by ideology than by a search for the truth. This situation probably explains the spectacular lack of progress in developing effective treatments, or even in understanding the basis of the disease.

I started to blog about the few diamonds I found amongst the research coal. In the last few years there has been an upsurge in good-quality biomedical research, and it looks like there is plenty more to come. For that reason I have decided to create my own blog: I am hoping that these will be exciting times for research and that I will be recording and exploring the progress towards understanding and treatments.

If you like the sound of this then please follow my ME/CFS Research Review blog using the sign-up in the right hand column, or below in mobile devices. You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook, where I make shorter but more frequent posts about research.

I hope to see you here again before too long.

Simon McGrath

Follow @sjmnotes