Live With ME/CFS: Giant ME/CFS Research Project Launched!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Giant ME/CFS Research Project Launched!

This past month of crashes, infections, traveling, houseguests, and big events has left me seriously behind the times in ME/CFS news. I've glanced at headlines but have otherwise had no time/energy to dig deeper or understand recent events. I'm trying to catch up a bit this week, both for my own benefit and for the blog, so stay tuned.

I like good news best, so I'll start off with some really amazingly good news in the ME/CFS research world:

As reported by Cort Johnson at Health Rising (a fabulous blog/website for ME/CFS that I highly recommend), a high-profile member of the medical research community has announced a new, huge project designed to unravel the mysteries of ME/CFS. Ron Davis, PhD, will be heading up a research consortium to focus on ME/CFS, including both ME/CFS experts and outside experts in certain fields. The "End ME/CFS" project will be created by the Open Medicine Foundation (OMF), and they are planning to secure funding to the tune of $5 million dollars a year. That's about double the National Institute of Health's (NIH) total funding for ME/CFS, just to put things into perspective.

But it's not just the money that is significant in this announcement (though that's certainly important!) - it's also the background, planned strategy, and personal motivation of Dr. Ron Davis who will be heading up the project. He's headed up the Stanford Genome Technology Center for 20 years, has won several prestigious awards, and published over 500 scientific papers. In an Atlantic Monthly article last year, Davis was noted as one of eight inventors that future historians will consider the greatest inventors of our time, based on his work in genetics.

In the case of ME/CFS, though, Davis has additional motivation besides new genetic discoveries: his own son has very severe ME/CFS, so this project is highly personal for him.

You can read more about Davis and the details of this project in the excellent Health Rising article.

To donate to this ground-breaking project with the lofty goal of solving and ending ME/CFS, head over to the OMF donation page. I just made my donation!

I like good news.

eight inventors tomorrow’s historians will consider the greatest inventors today.

Read more: “End ME/CFS” Mega Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Project Begins http://www.cortjohnson.org/blog/2014/10/11/end-mecfs-mega-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-project-begins/