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Author: Simon McGrath

There’s a yawning gap in ME/CFS research funding. Take action.

There’s a yawning gap in ME/CFS research funding. Take action.

When I got ME more than 20 years ago, I thought that science would soon provide the answers to my illness. Instead, I saw little good research going on, and there’s been a spectacular lack of progress since then. We have no treatments and still don’t even know what causes the disease. Why not? The fundamental reason for the lack of good science is that there is not enough funding: money is the sun that powers the research world. And…

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collaboratives map
A new research landscape emerges in America

A new research landscape emerges in America

Things are changing in the US for ME/CFS research as four new collaboratives set up and get to work. In September last year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced $35 million of funding to establish three new ME/CFS research collaboratives and a supporting data centre. Since then, the Open Medicine Foundation (OMF) has helped to establish a fourth research collaborative, at Stanford, committing $2.4 million for the first two years. It aims to fund the collaborative at similar levels until…

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The CMRC embraces the biomedical

The CMRC embraces the biomedical

The CFS/ME Research Collaborative has belatedly recognised the critical importance of focusing on biomedical research to uncover the biological mechanisms behind ME/CFS. Its controversial deputy chair, Prof Esther Crawley, is standing down and will be replaced by biomedical researcher Prof Chris Ponting. The Collaborative has started taking concrete action to engage with patients and has also announced ambitious plans to enable much more biomedical research in the UK. [read more]

PACE trial’s findings fundamentally challenged by a new study

PACE trial’s findings fundamentally challenged by a new study

Analysing PACE the way the authors originally promised to do showed that CBT and GET didn’t do much to improve self-reported physical function and fatigue and did not lead to recovery. Even the very limited self-reported gains in this unblinded trial are likely to be illusory because they are not backed up by meaningful gains in objective measures, such as fitness. The self-report gains also appear not to last. We now need biomedical research to pave the way for effective treatments.

Welcome to the ME/CFS Research Review

Welcome to the ME/CFS Research Review

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,…

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