$720,000 grants to 2 La Trobe University researchers from the Mason Foundation for ME and long Covid research

https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2024/release/new-myalgic-encephalomyelitis-research-funding

New Myalgic Encephalomyelitis research funding


Two of La Trobe University’s leading Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) researchers were awarded grants worth $720,000 to conduct further studies into the condition.

The funding from the Mason Foundation, announced today, will help find solutions to ME, also referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Two of La Trobe University’s projects were selected for funding from the foundation’s $1.4 million 2024 research grants program.

The studies will examine how signatures from the gut microbiota, immune system or peripheral blood cells could be used to diagnose or develop treatments for ME or Long COVID.

Professor Paul Fisher said ME and Long COVID were poorly understood but devastating illnesses, which did not have definitive diagnostic tests or effective treatments.

“Both of these projects at La Trobe will help to address these deficits,” Professor Fisher said.

“The project my group is working on will reveal if the molecular and cellular signature of ME is evident in blood cells from post-COVID ME patients.

“It will reveal whether non-COVID and post-COVID ME are the same illness, and it will give us insights into how these diseases work.”

Research Officer Microbiology, Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology Dr Daniel Missailidis said his team would investigate symptoms of ME more holistically by analysing the gut and blood of patients with new technology.

“We want this research to lead to the development of a diagnostic test and the discovery of treatments that will help a large community that is sadly too often left behind,” Dr Missailidis said.

“These grants will allow us to conduct essential research in these areas, which will give us a greater understanding of how different body systems interact with ME.”

Professor Susan Dodds FAHA, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice President (Research and Industry Engagement) congratulated the researchers on their grant.

“These prestigious grants reflect the high calibre of health and medical research at La Trobe, which is making a real difference to the lives of Australians and communities worldwide,” said Professor Dodds.

The Mason Foundation was one of the first philanthropic funders to recognise the importance of ME research, with funding going directly to solving the ongoing challenge of this elusive illness, which can have a devastating impact on people’s lives.

Since establishment, the Mason Foundation has awarded more than $26 million of research funding for ME and Alzheimer’s disease.

Media Contact:
Elaine Cooney – E.Cooney@latrobe.edu.au, 0487 448 734

 

A similar article, or perhaps simply a carbon copy, has been published in a newspaper
New Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Research Funding

• Education
  
• 4 Mar 2024 1:30 pm AEST

https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/new-myalgic-encephalomyelitis-research-funding/#google_vignette

Also:
https://bnnbreaking.com/world/austr...research-wins-720k-in-mason-foundation-grants
&
https://www.miragenews.com/myalgic-encephalomyelitis-research-receives-1186349/

 

Thanks Hutan .

Okay so there are two studies here. One that I am leading (my first, I cannot tell you how good it is to finally have some research that I am steering) and Paul's project which I am involved with but not a main CI on.

So I will just speak about my project, Paul's business is at his discretion.

My project is involving a few researchers at WEHI who are superstars in the coeliac and brain fog or autoimmune areas and who have already developed clinical gold standard biomarkers in other disease settings. We are beyond thrilled to get them on board with ME/CFS research. Credit for this goes to Sarah for making these connections initially (Sarah is a CI on this grant and is acting in a mentoring capacity so her contributions cannot be understated).

The plan is to try and make a pretty comprehensive profile of the functional immune response, body-wide lipid metabolism and gut microorganisms (not just bacteria ;D) and use a unique resource that one of our investigators at la trobe has developed to screen all of this for a) approved drugs that will ameliorate what we see and b) which of these factors are the most discriminatory. This will hopefully enable subsequent validation studies for either drugs or biomarkers if we think there is anything to it. There are also mechanistic hypothesis-driven questions that are part of this that are based on unpublished data so I can't share them yet. We'll be doing the experiments using methods that are often more sensitive or new or advanced than what has been done before (or are even unique to members of our team), and all in the same samples from the same people, in a cohort that I hope will be pretty large. I am genuinely excited by this and the toys that we are bringing to bear. And we have real experts in every aspect of this project on board and for once I'm not trying to jack of all trades everything (and not tunnel visioning on the mitochondria, and not worrying about the caveats of immortalised cell lines)!! I am genuinely so excited to be doing something fresh. Fingers crossed that we get results that will actually make a dent. All I can do now is work hard and hope.

I am also glad that some aspects of this work will overlap with past local studies and some work currently underway by other local friends which should add some accountability and a test of reproducibility to at least parts of our results. We need this in the field so badly.

As for engagement, this grant was only possible with the involvement of a PPI group who I will continue to engage as needed throughout. As for involvement in potential publications etc, we are involving new people in the field who we haven't worked with before so I will need to talk to them about what they are comfortable with. We'll also be doing home visits to enable severe pwME to participate. I have also overhauled our typical clinical information collection and we are finally moving from CCC to ICC with the advice of PPI.

I worked around the clock to try and make this study:

a) involve pwME
b) improve on and pivot the direction of at least a significant proportion of my research
c) bring something new to the table
d) have a chance of some kind of translatable outcome to make the generously committed funding fruitful

So I hope that this shows. I want the work to matter. I don't want to spin a narrative or do the same things over and over or keep my research in a little box. I don't want to string together small meaningless differences into grant application into grant application and tread scientific water just to make a living.

We'll see what happens. For now I am happy and hopeful and curious beyond measure.

 

So exciting to hear, and especially the bit about including home visits for severe participants! I'm living in Naarm and hope I can keep an eye out for participant enrolment in this project - it doesn't look like there's anything up for it on La Trobe's website yet, understandably. Or would this be coming via the PPI group mentioned?

I don't want to bother Dr. Missailidis with this, but could someone explain roughly what "functional immune response" refers to in his previous post?

 

I phrased it vaguely on purpose because I don't like mentioning specific experiments in advance because then people might anticipate results that for whatever technical reason don't pan out and I don't want to create disappointment.

I'll just add that part of what we plan to look at includes cytokines, T cell activation, autoantibodies.

Please do not take this as gospel or hold it to anything, but it's part of the plan at this stage.

 

Thanks very much for your response, and the caution

 

Good luck Daniel! Appreciate the attitude of not just doing the steps but making sure they matter.

 

many congratulations to you and your team @DMissa this is great news!

Really appreciate your approach and attitude especially this

wishing you all the very best with it, we are behind you all the way

 

Well done on landing this and setting things up so well for a good study. Look forward to seeing the resutls in due course.

 

Thanks everyone. It's emotionally tough going sometimes and your encouragement really makes a genuine difference.

I just realised that I missed something.

I have submitted the ethics application and am waiting for it to clear before we can start recruiting. I'll do my best to pepper the information around when the time comes.