Yesterday there was a symposium by Polybio showing their latest work. Both LC and ME/CFS but there is more focus on LC given recent funding so I put it there. Here is a very extensive thread covering much of it (200+): And a shorter summary: Summary document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/127j4WI5oAED4LRM0uy-a6RIRoYzhD61fGYc3bvlG64g/edit
I noticed there wasn’t much coverage/following of this event on this forum. Was it because people didn’t know about it or was it because there isn’t much interest in viral persistence research?
In my case it was because I didn't know about it. Edit: Also it was the day after the Unite to Fight two day marathon conference, so I had no energy left to follow this one. Also, not being on Twitter, I couldn't follow the posts there about it. Will the talks be published on YouTube?
I'm not on Twitter and wasn't aware of this as upcoming. Plus we had UniteToFight 2024 which occupied attention. It's a good problem to have when major conferences are now colliding ! Personally I think viral persistence is an important hypothesis but it's not the only possibility - not least because there seem to be non-viral (eg Lyme) paths into the pathophenotype (although occult latent viruses could be relevant in those scenarios). I am very interested in these megakaryocyte/blast findings - it could make a lot of sense for platelets to be dysfunctional due to their marrow-based (or even peripherally migrated) progenitors. There was a recent poster on this by Dominique Salmon / Morgane Bomsel's Paris team.
It was probably because people who noticed, or knew about, the event didn't post about it here, which could be for a variety of reasons.
The downfall of Xitter is probably a big reason. It's often the only place to find out about it these days, and with fewer people to notice them. Although it's good that lots of summaries and videos get posted after, so missing it for a day or two isn't that big a deal. Sometimes I see something passing and assume someone else will post it here if I'm not really up for it at the moment, but if it doesn't happen I get around to creating a thread. I don't remember seeing it announced before the day it was held, though. Some of this is probably with there being lots of news this week, from the United2fight conference and ME awareness week.
Yeah people who use twitter as their only means to communicate need to adopt a different strategy with at least one other option.
It probably was, but those are probably more direct/less available means, like subscribing to their newsletter, or maybe Facebook or other places. Not many places to get that kind of information. Same with OMF's symposiums, or the United2fight conference. That's what made twitter unique. It used to be a place to get news from where journalists get some of their news.
Amy Proal PhD intro 0:00 Petter Brodin MD PhD 10:21 Diane Griffin PhD 21:44 Kristin Ladell PhD speaking for David Price MD PhD 31:36 Morgane Bomsel PhD 40:03 Chiara Giannarelli MD PhD 52:37 Nicolas Huot PhD 1:02:16 Lael Yonker MD 1:15:11 Maayan Levy PhD 1:25:29 Michela Locci PhD 1:38:03 Steven Deeks MD 1:52:13 Tim Henrich MD MMSc 2:04:10 Resia Pretorius PhD 2:17:28 Gene Tan PhD 2:29:24 Nadia Roan PhD 2:39:39 Mark Painter PhD 2:51:49 Esen Sefik PhD 3:04:48 Rigel Chan PhD 3:17:30 Chris Dupont PhD 3:30:41 Victoria Cortes Bastos 3:42:27 Michael Peluso MD 3:52:39 Marcelo Freire DDS PhD 4:03:29 Sara Cherry PhD 4:16:33 Zian Tseng MD 4:28:36 David Putrino PhD 4:41:10 Mike VanElzakker PhD 4:53:14 Max Qian PhD 5:03:58 Matt Frank PhD 5:13:42 Ed Breitschwerdt PhD 5:26:31 Brent Harris MD PhD 5:40:55
I thought David Putrino's talk was interesting, so I had Claude.ai make a summary to share here: Context Long COVID and other complex chronic illnesses present over 200 symptoms affecting multiple organ systems Traditional large-scale monotherapeutic trials are often ineffective due to the complexity and diversity of patient experiences Three-Phase Clinical Trial Strategy Phase 1: Rapid Interventional Trials Sample size: 30-40 people per intervention arm Deep phenotyping: Conducted at baseline and end of intervention Collaboration with Akiko Iwasaki's team Focus areas: immune profiling, persistent pathogen levels, biomarkers of autonomic dysfunction Objective: Identify biomarkers associated with drug response Example: Testing a broad-spectrum antiviral Hypothetical finding: EBV titers bottoming out correlates with symptom improvement Phase 2: Targeted Larger Trials Recruitment based on Phase 1 results: Select participants with biomarkers indicating likely positive response Design: Larger-scale, placebo-controlled RCT of monotherapy Primary goals: Validate biomarkers identified in Phase 1 More effectively evaluate drug efficacy in a targeted population Hypothesis: Significantly higher response rate compared to Phase 1 Phase 3: Adaptive Platform Trials Focus: Testing multiple drug combinations Design features: Flexibility to adjust trial parameters based on ongoing results Ability to test various intervention combinations simultaneously Objective: Identify effective treatment combinations for specific patient phenotypes Implementation at CORE (Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses) Multiple active interventional trials in progress or pending approval Interventions being tested include: Antivirals Immunomodulators Physical interventions (devices) Key Strategy Elements Start with smaller, deeply phenotyped trials to identify response predictors Use these predictors to design more targeted, larger trials Progress to adaptive trials testing combination therapies Emphasis on understanding individual patient characteristics and their relation to treatment response
