Upcoming Global Research Developments

Thank you so much to Gemma O'Leary for helping our fund-raising for Dr Anna Brooks' research into long Covid and ME/CFS..

This effort comes at a potentially very exciting time in the history of ME/CFS research. There are two upcoming publications expected this year — at least one of which will be in a month. More accurately this will be a series of related publications. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been running an intramural study since 2016. This has been an in-depth evaluation of patients with ME/CFS and is notable in that NIH do not usually run their own research studies: rather they fund universities and other institutes. Analysis and reporting has been delayed, partly by the pandemic, but now the first of a series of publications has been submitted to a journal for peer review, with more to follow.

Separately Dr. Bhupesh Prusty has announced that he has found a biomarker — something that should be present in our blood, but is reduced in mild patients through to absent in severely affected patients. He has indicated that this informs a coherent model of the disease and he will present his findings in Berlin in mid-May and Cambridge two weeks later.

We await solid details to evaluate further, but from what we do know from his prior publications, this is highly aligned with the Brooks Lab research directions. There is a unique aspect to the disease in terms of exertional intolerance / post-exertional malaise and I believe there has to be a unifying biological explanation for this.

In the meantime plans proceed to line up relevant collaborations with the international researchers. Dr Brooks will post more detail on this when we know more. Now would be a very good time to support her work.