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Graphic of a DNA molecule
Norwegians publish the biggest ME DNA study yet and show we need even bigger studies

Norwegians publish the biggest ME DNA study yet and show we need even bigger studies

A Norwegian team has published the largest analysis yet to look for DNA differences that could pinpoint what goes wrong in ME (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS). Such differences would be a first step toward finding effective treatments. Unfortunately, the new study doesn’t find any DNA differences that reach the accepted standard for statistical significance. Even so, as Professor Chris Ponting and I comment in a companion piece, their paper helps to move forward the field of ME…

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Sign up! Your support could help win funding for a game-changing ME/CFS study

Sign up! Your support could help win funding for a game-changing ME/CFS study

Researchers and patients are about to submit an application to the UK’s two big medical research funders for a 20,000-patient genetic study. The team want people with ME to sign up to show funders that the community backs the study and that large numbers of people are ready to join it. Your action today could help the world’s largest ME/CFS genetics study win funding – and could make a huge difference for patients, helping to identify biological causes of the…

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Significant association of DNA variants with self-reported ME/CFS

Significant association of DNA variants with self-reported ME/CFS

Guest blog by Professor Chris Ponting and colleagues. Summary A new analysis using data from UK Biobank indicates that one version of a particular gene increases the risk of ME/CFS in women. The gene codes for a transporter protein in the mitochondrial membrane and plays a critical role in the urea cycle, which is important for removing ammonia from the body. Reduced levels of the transporter protein, which are expected for the gene variant associated with ME/CFS, are likely to…

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Analysis of data from 500,000 individuals in UK Biobank demonstrates an inherited component to ME/CFS

Analysis of data from 500,000 individuals in UK Biobank demonstrates an inherited component to ME/CFS

Guest blog by Professor Chris Ponting and colleagues. UK Biobank – a national biobank different from the ME/CFS biobank – has data from around 500,000 individuals, including both healthy people and those with one or more of the many different diseases in the UK population. About 2,000 people in the sample reported that they had been given a diagnosis of CFS. Analysis of data from this biobank indicates an inherited biological component for ME/CFS. The results show only one statistically…

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A plan to replicate Mark Davis’s remarkable findings of immune activation in ME/CFS

A plan to replicate Mark Davis’s remarkable findings of immune activation in ME/CFS

A team led by Edinburgh University’s Professor Chris Ponting has won funding for a PhD student who would follow up and expand on remarkable recent findings made at Stanford University, where Dr Mark Davis may have pinpointed a major issue in the immune system in ME/CFS. Last year, Davis produced strong evidence of T cell clonal expansion, similar to that seen in illnesses including multiple sclerosis and acute Lyme disease. His discovery came from a new and sophisticated way of…

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