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@wigglethemouse "Here is an example to describe what @Simon M is saying. Some folks believe mutations in the gene MBL2 play a role in making folks susceptible to ME. ... There are many gene mutations that can affect the bodies ability to fight infection. " Thanks, that is the kind of thing I am...

@Yvonne , I am glad you liked the blog, even if you don't like the idea of the GWAS. I will yry to addresss your main points. I would agree with that because that's what's needed to make progress and to develop treatments to help people with ME. I would also argue that is exactly whywe need a...

Subgroups I think this is really one for @Chris Ponting but I don't think he'll be around for a bit so let me try to answer some of these points. There are not many "very precisely defined" diseases. Type II diabetes, for instance, is not a single entity but several conditions, and that is...

Yes, handling people who don't/won't meet the selection criteria will be tricky. But it may be useful to have a group within the GWAS of people who have chronic fatigue the don't meet the criteria. And hopefully all the different patient groups and charities will come together to back this...

Thanks for all the suggestions. This is a huge target but I think of the whole community gets behind its we could do this and establish the world's largest ME/CFS study. From the blog: But recruiting so many ME/CFS patients would pose an unprecedented challenge for the researchers. The study...

I am not aware of any biobanks with significant amounts of relevant DNA data. There is Klimas but I don't know if it's feasible to incorporate that data. Epigenetics is a different approach. Critically, epigenetics reflect gene activity, which can be an effect of other things upstream, which...

Thanks for the excellent questions and I am delighted that so much interest in this. I will answer as much of this as I can myself as I don't know if Chris Ponting is available at the moment. Yes, it is an enormous number! I am not sure if that many patients have ever come together for a single...

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...

He was also interviewed earlier in the day, which you can watch here, about why we need much more research funding, his immune signature study and why he wants to see a huge genetic study with up to 20,000 patients.

Prof @Chris Ponting made a cracking seven-minute speech at the Glasgow millions missing event, captured here It really is worth a listen. He talked about a range of things including progress in science, that ME scientists are listening to legitimate questions and concerns about science and...

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...

Thanks to all those continuing to toil on this thread. Took me awhile to realise how little I understood of the detail of this method and how out of my depth I was. Though I’m assuming that, regardless of my ignorance of the black box, if the results replicate and hold up using sick controls...

According to figure 1 (A, B) The nano needle has two thin gold electrode layers sandwiched between three (Insulating?) oxide layers, presumably current flows between those two electrode layers via the fluid, but influenced by the close proximity of the cells, or even cell contact. According...

That is unknown, though “just a reaction to being circumstances” seems to be underplaying the problem. Certainly some cases seem to be caused by immune problems, and that’s an active area of investigation. But non biomedical problems can cause very serious depression.

They have a plan Just about every other "potential biomarker" has faded away . What is encouraging about this one is both the dramatic difference between patients and controls, and the fact that they have a clear plan to develop it. First, they aim to test the performance of the assay on...

Sorry come I had assumed you had seen that’s because of your question about the geometry. As someone without any experience of PBMC is suspended in plasma, I had assumed that there might be some local forces attracting the sounds to be electrode. But also, I had assumed that some of the cells...

"What" is a lot easier to answer than "why". They produced "simplified blood" of each patient made up of PBMCs resuspended in plasma, 200 cells per microlitre. A sample of this was added to the Nanoneedle chip and they then measured in impedance. Impedance is defined as the ratio of applied...

This is the key issue, particularly given the frequent claim that this shows ME/CFS is not "all in the mind" (I really dislike that phrase because it denigrates mental health problems). Depression probably has a stronger immune signal than ME/CFS. Michael VanElzakker has pointed out that you...

In the discussion, the authors say "According to our experimental results, ME/CFS blood cells display a unique characteristic in the impedance pattern…" Yes, as they go on to say, it is significantly different from healthy controls. But no one has a problem distinguishing ME patients from...

Have had a quick read through The paper and thought I'd place here before I went to bed. They do claim that the finding is unique to ME/CFS. So those comparisons with sick controls are essential. As I think everyone has pointed out, bigger samples are also needed. Though the Stanford piece...