Latest from Ron Davis: more evidence of “something in the blood”

Latest from Ron Davis: more evidence of “something in the blood”

More clues are pointing to a role for blood plasma in ME/CFS. Ron Davis recently presented data showing that ME/CFS cells behave normally in the nanoneedle test IF they are tested in healthy plasma. Also, red blood cells from ME/CFS patients are not as deformable as those from healthy people — but researchers only see the difference when patient’s cells are tested in their own plasma. Plus, a bigger and better pathogen hunt and another drug candidate emerges from nanoneedle…

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Stanford symposium: the potential of smartphones to better understand diseases, including ME/CFS

Stanford symposium: the potential of smartphones to better understand diseases, including ME/CFS

“We think smartphones will be the most important health tool in future”, said Dr Michael Snyder at the recent Stanford ME/CFS symposium. Snyder heads up the Stanford Centre for Genomics and Precision Medicine, as well as the Genetics Department at Stanford University. His presentation highlighted the potential of technologies to monitor health and better understand diseases – including ME/CFS. Snyder’s work on personal, data-driven medicine kicked off with a landmark paper in 2012 (which wasn’t covered in his talk). This…

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Bold plans for two big biomedical research projects

Bold plans for two big biomedical research projects

The ME/CFS Biomedical Partnership, led by Prof Chris Ponting and Dr Luis Nacul, plan a huge genetic study and a major expansion of the UK ME/CFS biobank. The partnership will give patients and their representatives a major role in planning and running the project. The genetic research, a genome-wide association study, would need to recruit 20,000 people with ME/CFS – and the researchers know they can only do with the support of the patient the community. A new research team…

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Minister Petitpas Taylor
Launch of Canadian research network makes a big statement about M.E.

Launch of Canadian research network makes a big statement about M.E.

The Canadian government has announced a modest $1.4 million investment in a new research network and delivered a big message: ME is a serious illness, deserves respect (“Let’s remove the insult from this injury”) and needs more biomedical research. The network, led by Professor Alain Moreau, will set up a national patient cohort that will include objective data on patients’ posts-exertional malaise. It will initially run three studies, including a virus hunt. And it will boost Canadian research capacity, e.g….

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Researchers propose deep trawl of DNA to help uncover the causes of ME/CFS

Researchers propose deep trawl of DNA to help uncover the causes of ME/CFS

Analysing the DNA of thousands of patients can help to uncover the genetic roots of diseases and shed light on the underlying biological mechanisms. This can reveal targets for drug development. A new and very different type of genetic research has emerged this millennium – the genome-wide association study (GWAS, pronounced “gee-was”). By probing small genetic differences between people, such studies can help to uncover the biological roots of disease and have already helped to guide drug development. Researchers including…

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Nanoelectric device could lead to a diagnostic blood test for ME/CFS

Nanoelectric device could lead to a diagnostic blood test for ME/CFS

Last week, Dr Ron Davis’s team published a pilot study showing remarkable results for their nanoneedle device. Strikingly, there was no overlap between the results for 20 ME/CFS patients and those for 20 healthy controls, something that is almost never seen with this illness. A nanoelectronics-blood-based diagnostic biomarker for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) R Esfandyarpour, A Kashi, M Nemat-Gorgani, J Wilhelmy and RW Davis. 2019 The nanoelectric blood test The research used nanomanufacturing techniques to embed large numbers of…

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