“We’ve established that Gulf War Illness is caused by a disruption in normal cell signaling that results in these disabling symptoms,” explained Dr. Klimas. “This is primarily due to disruptions in normal immune, cardiovascular, and hormone signaling.”
Over the last four years, Dr. Klimas and her research team -- as well as the other research team through their respective, previously funded GWI Consortia (GWIC) -- have identified disease markers that include, but are not limited to, energy production, immune function and inflammation.
“Our research results to date suggest that treatment will rely on combination approaches that have synergistic effects and/or single drugs with multiple mechanisms of action,” explained Dr. Klimas. “In addition, due to the myriad of symptoms tied to GWI that vary among patients, treatments may be effective only for particular subsets of patients, which is why our clinical trials focus on similar targets of disease activity from different, well thought-out and validated approaches.”
Dr. Klimas hopes to quickly deliver treatments to patients suffering from this debilitating illness. She concluded, “Based on our early experiences with combination synergistic approaches, as well as single drugs with multiple mechanisms of action, we truly believe that the targets in this proposal will help to improve energy production, restore immune function and reduce inflammation.”
