So does this mean that all the information they thought they had on metabolic trap is questionable or wrong? I'm not sure how to interpret what Dr.Davis said?
My understanding of what he said about the metabolic trap is that there is a delay in testing the hypothesis, because the instruments they were planning to use to carry out the tests don't give accurate enough results, so they are having to design better ways to get the accuracy they need. So it's not that the information was wrong, it's just that they haven't been able to get high enough quality data yet to test it properly.
Towards the end of his presentation at the recent OMF symposium Phair said that they'd already started testing the hypothesis and showed the early results having tested 6 patients with ME/CFS (and he intimated that this testing used a mass spectrometer). I think we have to assume that the results he showed (the three graphs that appeared to support his testable predictions about cellular tryptophan and kyneurenine and the kyn/trp ratio) aren't reliable - at least until we hear more from the OMF.
One thing I have noticed about Ron Davis’s OMF work is if there is no way to test what he wants to test, he will attempt to try to develop a test. I suspect that’s a difference from having private funding rather than government funding. He has the leeway to do this.
I wonder if it's variability in the sample or variability in the instrument; I assume that it's variability in the instrument. E.g. test same patient multiple times and the results vary (e.g. you can't reliably extract the PBMCs/extract tryptophan from PBMCs) or test the same sample multiple times and the results vary (e.g. instrument - mass spectrometer variability). We need public i.e. government funding;most significant science breakthroughs have their origin in publicly funded research. The gulf war veterans are getting some funding but ME/CFS is getting very little. The big pharmaceutical firms may come on board at some point but until then we need public funding.