PRIME International Symposium, September 28-29 2026

[obeat]

Would the lumen of microvascules not change with changes in neural signalling? Could this result in permanent change over time?

 

[MelbME]

Would the lumen of microvascules not change with changes in neural signalling? Could this result in permanent change over time?

Seems to be a sign of chronic microvascular inflammation, I do think some autoimmune disease create this. I think this would also cause small fiber neuropathy, so changes in neural signalling fit.

 

[Braganca]

Danny Altmann seems to be admitting that all his favourite theories are not going to explain things.

He seemed quite aware of the criticisms of his new Rosetta Stone project design also.. whilst not really changing the approach and really didn’t make it sound exciting.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Would the lumen of microvascules not change with changes in neural signalling? Could this result in permanent change over time?

My reading is that these are capillaries. I don't think nerves controls lumen size much at this level. There is no muscular media to contract.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

eems to be a sign of chronic microvascular inflammation,

Not as far as I know. Chronic inflammation would show cell emigration and the pictures are completely clear of that. After injury capillaries might be distorted by sacrred matrix but again the slides do not show that.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

He seemed quite aware of the criticisms of his new Rosetta Stone project design also

Yes...

 

[V.R.T.]

He seemed quite aware of the criticisms of his new Rosetta Stone project design also.. whilst not really changing the approach and really didn’t make it sound exciting.

I hope Danny A wouldn't mind me saying that he told me by email a couple of months ago, in response to my inquiry, that they are very interested in the CD38 angle and will keep an eye on CD24 as well.

Charles Sherpard wrote a post a while back implying Rosetta Stone will try to replicate the 2024 IFNy long covid paper from iirc Cambridge that people on here liked.

So I think just those elements of attempting to replicate these interesting and potentially important findings make Rosetta Stone a worthwhile study.

 

[Braganca]

Has anyone inquired if the buspirone challenge replication study idea be incorporated into some of these funded projects?

 

[BrightCandle]

He seemed quite aware of the criticisms of his new Rosetta Stone project design also.. whilst not really changing the approach and really didn’t make it sound exciting.

I just don't see the point of rerunning studies that didn't find much signal the first time. I am much more interested in running something no one else has considered, looking at things we don't currently name in blood, urine, saliva or developing antibodies for finding issue resident infections with PET. Just something, anything they has not been done yet. Because all we can say so far is nothing stands out as appearing in every patient really obviously in anything measured so far. Stop looking for your keys under the light and go make a torch and hunt where you think you dropped them.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Has anyone inquired if the buspirone challenge replication study idea be incorporated into some of these funded projects?

I think the buspirone study needs a proper clinical base, run by a physician who understands individual people's needs and can make use of a throughput of relatively unselected cases.

 

[chillier]

Has anyone inquired if the buspirone challenge replication study idea be incorporated into some of these funded projects?

I mentioned this to some of the GEM people who did the big gwas meta analysis and found pituitary tissue enrichment and they seemed to find it interesting. Again though it will need to be clinicians who can actually do it.

 

[chillier]

I just don't see the point of rerunning studies that didn't find much signal the first time. I am much more interested in running something no one else has considered, looking at things we don't currently name in blood, urine, saliva or developing antibodies for finding issue resident infections with PET. Just something, anything they has not been done yet. Because all we can say so far is nothing stands out as appearing in every patient really obviously in anything measured so far. Stop looking for your keys under the light and go make a torch and hunt where you think you dropped them.

He said we need to do better than the other studies, it wasn't clear how this study was different to those. Maybe it's because it will have a larger sample size? But I don't think he mentioned how large the cohorts will be.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

I just don't see the point of rerunning studies that didn't find much signal the first time.

To be fair, Altmann seemed very aware of the need to shift focus and if, as he says and V.R.T. confirms he is working with jackie Cliff and taking an interest in CD38 and CD24 I think we may at least get some clarity on interesting data we already have.

 

[chillier]

To be fair, Altmann seemed very aware of the need to shift focus and if, as he says and V.R.T. confirms he is working with jackie Cliff and taking an interest in CD38 and CD24 I think we may at least get some clarity on interesting data we already have.

That would be good, on his slide about the experiments they intend to do, for the pbmcs collection it only said measure glycolysis/respiration, so I hope they do more than just that

 

[lelelemonade]

What struck me most was they found the tissue most enriched for gene expression was the pituitary

This made me remember that reddit post by someone who was misdiagnosed with ME but in reality had a benign tumor pressing on their pituitary. They said they experienced something very much like post exertional malaise

 

[chillier]

I'm curious what people think about the reduction in capillary lumen diameter found in long covid and mecfs compared to controls from Rob Wusts presentation. The effect size is gigantic with a blue sky separation of the cohorts. I have some memory of s4me members being skeptical of the implications though.

The Electromyography and handgrip strength experiment from the NIH intramural study appeared to show that patients experience increasing fatigue long before any actual peripheral changes/ fatigue in the muscle itself, possibly suggesting the fatigue is coming centrally and not the muscles. That might appear to conflict with what Rob Wust is arguing though maybe there are more complicated reasons why it might tally.

 

[hotblack]

I hope Danny A wouldn't mind me saying that he told me by email a couple of months ago, in response to my inquiry, that they are very interested in the CD38 angle and will keep an eye on CD24 as well.

Charles Sherpard wrote a post a while back implying Rosetta Stone will try to replicate the 2024 IFNy long covid paper from iirc Cambridge that people on here liked.

So I think just those elements of attempting to replicate these interesting and potentially important findings make Rosetta Stone a worthwhile study.

Nice work getting in contact. And agree if they can listen, learn and adapt it’s definitely worthwhile. This was an area I thought they may be interested in but haven’t heard anything

Post in thread 'Charting the circulating proteome in ME/CFS using cross-system profiling to uncover mechanistic insights, 2026, Hoel, Fluge, Mella+'

Mar 7, 2026

I was going to ask those more knowledgeable and experienced in this field (like @DMissa ) what the chances are of someone else looking at ME/CFS proteomics would be of reproducing this. It looks like the Rosetta Stone study is using the same kit at least, I wonder if they're aware of this paper?

From this paper

Serum protein concentrations for 50 ME/CFS patients and 29 HCs were measured using aptamer-based technology (SomaScan v.4.1 7 k).

From the Rosetta Stone funding document

The study will also investigate several important biological questions, including...

• hotblack

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[V.R.T.]

One of the things people are sometimes told to rule out when thinking they have MECFS is hypopituitarism, which has some symptom overlap.

Hypopituitarism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[V.R.T.]

To be fair, Altmann seemed very aware of the need to shift focus and if, as he says and V.R.T. confirms he is working with jackie Cliff and taking an interest in CD38 and CD24 I think we may at least get some clarity on interesting data we already have.

I'm not watching the talks live and didn't know he was working with Jackie Cliff, that's great!

 

[BrightCandle]

I'm curious what people think about the reduction in capillary lumen diameter found in long covid and mecfs compared to controls from Rob Wusts presentation. The effect size is gigantic with a blue sky separation of the cohorts. I have some memory of s4me members being skeptical of the implications though.

The Electromyography and handgrip strength experiment from the NIH intramural study appeared to show that patients experience increasing fatigue long before any actual peripheral changes/ fatigue in the muscle itself, possibly suggesting the fatigue is coming centrally and not the muscles. That might appear to conflict with what Rob Wust is arguing though maybe there are more complicated reasons why it might tally.

It's also not compensated with more either, on average sufferers had less total capillaries. If we could measure this without a biopsy it could be diagnostically useful depending on whether other similar diseases show this too.