A nanoelectronics-blood-based diagnostic biomarker for ME/CFS (2019) Esfandyarpour, Davis et al

Being careful about making claims is a different issue from not telling other scientists how the experiments were actually done.

 

That's probably due to patent rights. American universities are very competitive (and are private enterprises) and as long as Davis works within Stanford he is subject to restrictions that would otherwise limit the university's claim on his work product. Being a top 3 university in the world, they are particularly sensitive about anything that keeps them in that ranking and patents are a big part of it.

Those Yankees, they think differently about things.

 

For me yes - the actual positional relation of electrodes to cells - how many electrodes, how many cells, how often in contact. PBMC tend to move about and to have ruffled cell membranes. I cannot get a clear idea how they would stick to the electrodes or what the measurement would actually tell us.

One possibility seems to be that the rising ME curves are due to cells dying. That would be fairly easy to test.

 

[QUOTE="rvallee, post: 164748, member: 932"
Those Yankees, they think differently about things.[/QUOTE]

Yup, it's all about money here. Underlies everything, and every attitude.

 

What kind of cell dying?

 

But if nobody can replicate the work the science does not move forward and the patients remain at square one. I thought that Davis was motivated by trying to get his son better. The way to do that would be to publish stuff that other scientists can understand.

 

Just cells dying. It does not really matter whether it is programmed or just lysis - in reality the situation is usually a mixture of the two.

 

Thanks

 

Much of the paper acknowledges there is still a lot they do not understand, including their statement "This investigation forms part of on-going studies that require further investigation before mechanisms may be suggested with a good degree of certainty." I suspect some of what you do not understand Jonathan are things that no one yet does, including the authors, who are being very open about that. But I think they aspire to try and find out. Or maybe there could be other teams that might help.

 

Some of it yes, but some of the things I do not understand are just how they actually did the experiment. The methods account seems more opaque every time I try to read it. I spent this afternoon trying to figure it out with Jo Cambridge and neither of us was much the wiser.

 

That would be nice, if it's not breaking some code scientists' code or other.

 

Ouch.

 

I cannot recall if Davis has any federal funds feeding his efforts, but if so, the Bayh-Dole Act may play a role in how freely he can speak.

 

Yes, I agree. If you and colleagues cannot fathom that aspect, then further clarification would be good I think.

 

It doesn't seem to me that they `re actually hiding anything. It is just that the description is impossible to follow.

 

If you test samples using the nano-needle and e.g. also:

• measure Oxygen Consumption [Karl Morten]; and/or
• measure the surface area/morphology [Bhupesh Prusty]; and/or
• remove the exosomes (filter plasma/serum) and re-test.

Then presumably you can work out whether the nano-needle gives false positives/negatives. If it's the method least likely to give false negatives/positives, is reliable (i.e. can be used in hospital laboratories etc.) and relatively cheap, then what's the problem? Ron Davis said that it might be necessary to test using a number of techniques - you could test a proportion/all of the samples using a second assay if necessary. Also, I wouldn't necessarily get too worried since this test might lead to the development of a further test(s) e.g. micro-RNAs in exosomes.

I was wondering if you could give an insight into how exosome signalling works e.g.:

• how do exosome's find their target cell (which they fuse with)?
• could exosome signalling be the reason why all of the standard tests fail i.e. the blood samples appear normal when tested with conventional methods?
• I assume you can find the parent cell (from which the exosome comes) can you find the target cell?

I'm no expert; however, I'm pleased that OMF are funding/validating this. It may help those with ME (diagnosis + mechanism - exosomes?) and counter intuitively help those who have been misdiagnosed with ME, to get a correct diagnosis and treatments.

Check out ME Actions webpage regarding Millions Missing campaign - in the UK they are are focused on lobbying for a diagnostic test and treatments:
https://www.meaction.net/2019/02/26...fsGN6UC25ckb8A6XB90p-HBRP7ZTcjCDD0En-tAKvWek4

 

Is there a process where scientists can publish follow up clarifications of earlier work? Or can they just do it anyway?