It’s great to see PAIS, Long COVID, and—in this article—explicitly ME/CFS receiving coverage in top biomedical journals following the Science news feature. I also found it fascinating to learn that Amy Proal, co-founder of PolyBio, experienced an ME/CFS-like illness for a year as a young woman before recovering, and is now helping drive the field forward.
While I personally remain skeptical of SARS-CoV-2 viral persistence as the primary explanation for Long COVID (and certainly for ME/CFS), thorough research into the question remains vital.
I was particularly glad this piece highlighted herpesvirus reactivation as a potential driver of ME/CFS without framing it as standard, lytic herpes infections—a distinction the Nature feature from early August glossed over. It seems science journalists are making real progress in capturing these nuances.
What the article subsumes under general immunological progress, but doesn't state explicitly, is that this renewed focus on herpes reactivation builds on key T-cell findings from Liisa Selin (UMass) and others over recent years. Excellent young T- and B-cell researchers—such as Ayano Kohlgruber (Harvard), Michela Locci (UPenn), and Mark Painter (UPenn)—are building on this groundwork to dig deeper, with early findings expected next year. And these are just the ones I happen to know about; there seems to be a whole new wave of top-tier talent going full force after herpes, alongside the long-standing ME/CFS guard like Jacqueline Cliff, Bhupesh Prusty, and Maria Ariza.
Finally, the article mentions the successful preliminary valacyclovir trial in Long COVID led by David Putrino and his team, which yielded promising enough results to advance to a double-blind study. ME/CFS patients have fought unsuccessfully for a trial like this since the 1980s. As a responder to valacyclovir who couldn't find a physician willing to prescribe it off-label back in 2021, I've been eagerly awaiting such a trial.
www.nature.com
