News from PolyBio Research Foundation

Utsikt said:
$10M is a massive donation! I hope they spend it wisely.
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I do get a little bit frustrated seeing Polybio get all this money just falling into their laps whilst brilliant MECFS researchers are having to go around hat in hand begging for funding.

They don't seem to do a lot of immune research that doesn't revolve around viral persistence, which imo is almost certainly a dead end.

I do wonder if it would be possible to get to the point of visibility where Edinburgh or Fluge and Mella are getting donations approaching this magnitude. After all the reality is they are much more likely to get to the bottom of this than the viral persistance people, if only we could persuade rich relatives of pwME/LC of this fact.
 
V.R.T. said:
I do get a little bit frustrated seeing Polybio get all this money just falling into their laps whilst brilliant MECFS researchers are having to go around hat in hand begging for funding.

They don't seem to do a lot of immune research that doesn't revolve around viral persistence, which imo is almost certainly a dead end.

I do wonder if it would be possible to get to the point of visibility where Edinburgh or Fluge and Mella are getting donations approaching this magnitude. After all the reality is they are much more likely to get to the bottom of this than the viral persistance people, if only we could persuade rich relatives of pwME/LC of this fact.
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They’ve got an attractive sales pitch from the perspective of outsiders, and people with experience and connections from private equity and tech.
 
Utsikt said:
They’ve got an attractive sales pitch from the perspective of outsiders, and people with experience and connections from private equity and tech.
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This is the thing that I'm wondering is how do we pitch SequenceME or F&Ms studies or the other good underfunded stuff so that these people see the potential for a breakthrough.

As far as I can tell Polybios pitch is just 'find virus, make virus go away'. Which maybe is it's power. But why doesn't 'Sequence all the genes, figure out the mechanism, fast track treatments' have the same power. Or 'this drug might have put half the study participants into remission'. It's not that much more complex of a concept. I guess the whole going all in on LLMs thing shows tech people are very susceptible to hype.

Or maybe it is all about the connections.
 
V.R.T. said:
Or maybe it is all about the connections.
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Connections and marketing? E.g. I don't remember ever seeing F&M mentioned in LC groups although a lot of people have ME/CFS diagnosis, too. DecodeME is widely known in the community but I'm not convinced people follow Ponting's group as much as Polybio groups. E.g. Putrino seems to be working a lot on visibility and promotion of whatever he's involved in. He's everywhere!

I don't know how much patients are influenced by scientists on social media and how much it's about a human desire for a cure. I might've completely misjudged it but my impression is that people are more excited about all sorts of trials, ongoing or planned, than basic research into the mechanisms of the illness(es). It might also be that people generally think a lot is known about LC and ME/CFS because their doctors and influencers have "biological" explanation for all of their symptoms.
 
V.R.T. said:
This is the thing that I'm wondering is how do we pitch SequenceME or F&Ms studies or the other good underfunded stuff so that these people see the potential for a breakthrough.

As far as I can tell Polybios pitch is just 'find virus, make virus go away'. Which maybe is it's power. But why doesn't 'Sequence all the genes, figure out the mechanism, fast track treatments' have the same power. Or 'this drug might have put half the study participants into remission'. It's not that much more complex of a concept. I guess the whole going all in on LLMs thing shows tech people are very susceptible to hype.

Or maybe it is all about the connections.
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The PE pitch for SequenceME would be something like:

1) Fast tracks research and funding acquisition
2) Enhances efficacy of drug trials

If they wanted to align themselves with some of the current buzzwords..

3) Enables precision medicine
 
Utsikt said:
The PE pitch for SequenceME would be something like:

1) Fast tracks research and funding acquisition
2) Enhances efficacy of drug trials

If they wanted to align themselves with some of the current buzzwords..

3) Enables precision medicine
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Yeah that sounds about right. perhaps the people they're getting in to help with funding using the first amount of SequenceME will figure out how to pitch it to the Silicon Valley crowd.
 
V.R.T. said:
I do get a little bit frustrated seeing Polybio get all this money just falling into their laps whilst brilliant MECFS researchers are having to go around hat in hand begging for funding.

They don't seem to do a lot of immune research that doesn't revolve around viral persistence, which imo is almost certainly a dead end.

I do wonder if it would be possible to get to the point of visibility where Edinburgh or Fluge and Mella are getting donations approaching this magnitude. After all the reality is they are much more likely to get to the bottom of this than the viral persistance people, if only we could persuade rich relatives of pwME/LC of this fact.
Click to expand...
100% agree. What gives me some hope is that their wording seems to change slowly from only „viral persistence“ to „viral persistence and immune disregulation“. Although I dont think they will every completely drop the persistence stuff;)
 
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