EBV as a trigger of autoreactivity and trigger of ME/CFS – funding of the research project CURE-ME under the leadership of the BIH

January 22, 2025

The joint project CURE-ME (Characterizing AUtoimmune REsponses and Defining Targets in ME/CFS) of the Berlin Institute of Health in Charite (BIH), the Charite- Universitatsmedizin Berlin and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with a total of 1,817,508 euros until 2027.

Under the leadership of immunological Prof. Dr. Birgit Sawitzki, the association aims to research the pathomechanisms of post-infectious ME/CFS identify biomarkers for more precise and early diagnosis and develop innovative approaches for new treatment concepts. The research is focusing on the EBV, which is being investigated as a driving force for misguided, autoreactive T and B cells responses and thus a trigger for ME/CFS
LINK

 

That does not give much information on what exactly they plan to do.
If EBV drove multiple auto reactive responses you would expect that to produce a whole range of different illnesses, not one. If it facilitated one particular error (as maybe it does in MS) then we don't seem to have much of a lead on how to pick that out in ME/CFS, without any overt immunopathology.

They may turn something up by chance while looking of course.

 

Maybe they don't really have a plan for that. The real plan was to use fashionable fund-winning words (EBV, autoreactive, post-infectious) to win some funds.