New Zealand: Dysimmune Research - research organisation

Hutan

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https://www.dysimmune.nz/
Crowd-Funded Research into Long Covid, ME/CFS & Other Post-Viral Illnesses
Hosted at the University of Auckland

Immunologist Anna Brooks is the Principal Investigator. Other co-founders have lived experience of ME/CFS and Long Covid. With the people involved, I think we can feel confident that there won't be any BPS nonsense. The website content reads well.

There's an exciting opportunity here to direct donor funds to something useful, and for collaborations with overseas investigations.

They are currently recruiting for one study:
Researchers at The Universities of Auckland and Otago are currently recruiting for a study to investigate immune and molecular markers following COVID-19 (healthy controls and Long COVID) and COVID-19 vaccination.

Edit: Previously the organisation was called Post-Viral Research Aotearoa. the link to the website has been updated
 
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I signed up for this study. There were a few slightly ambiguously worded questions but not in any way in a psychosomatic red flag sort of way, just ordinary screening questions not tested sufficiently on outsiders to check for potential ambiguities. Just a minor nuisance issue and easily resolved by asking the very responsive team for clarification.

As someone not living near a testing center I'm hoping they can get their planned home collection kits up and running. I think this is contingent on funding.

That's my biggest worry re this research, that insufficient funding will force them to reduce the scope of the study - cohort size, number and type of tests run, etc - to such a degree that any findings will be weak. I hope that won't be the case but crowdfunding this sort of thing isn't easy

I also made a small donation but if anyone reading this with much deeper pockets could reach into them, like reeeeal deep...
 
DysImmune Research announces Health Research Council health delivery activation grant.

The grant is for us to seek partnerships and lay out the feasibility of our research, which is aimed at utilising complex technologies to develop clinically actionable diagnostic tools for Long Covid, and other post-acute infections.

On top of Dr Brooks’ cytometry expertise, we have had Professors Jeremy Nicholson and Julien Wist at Murdoch University in Perth sign on with us as investigators for this proposal […] their immunometabolic tools hold promise both in uncovering a biomarker for Long Covid, and helping to identify other onset post-COVID risks, such as diabetes and heart disease.

More at https://www.dysimmune.nz/health-research-council-grant-announcement/
 
Anna Brooks and Rohan Botica in a Liggins Institute public lecture a couple of weeks ago. Targeted to a lay audience.
Yes, very much aimed at a very lay audience. Members here are unlikely to learn anything new. Anna lists a few of the LC hypotheses floating around but the key take-away is that there are many more questions than answers and that she wants to help find some of the answers but $$$. Would be nice if someone in the audience with deep pockets took note

Rohan filled the lived experience slot and it’s always nice to get to know one of our advocates a bit better. But am I the only one who, when seeing a pwME & OI, wants to yell at the screen “don’t stand there, sit down!!!” Anyway, I hope he didn’t get (too much) PEM
 
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