National Institutes of Health, USA
The education of healthcare staff must reflect the latest knowledge about the pathogenesis
of ME which high quality biomedical research is providing.
The presenters at the CPD-accredited Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences have represented the world's most
current knowledgebase regarding this disease - providing the latest research and clinical information about ME and
a unique location for networking with some of the most knowledgeable and experienced authorities on ME in the world.
Select from any of the previous conferences held since the charity started them in 2006 - and also include pre-conference keynote speeches
given by a variety of speakers to supplement knowledge and experience of this disease.
Professor Simon Carding, Quadram Institute, UK
Research Leader, Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich Research Park, UK
-
Further Information
Dr Vicky Whittemore
Program Director,
Division of Neuroscience,
National Institutes of Health, USA
Dr Brian Walitt, National Institutes of Health, USA y
Bhupesh Prusty currently works at the Institute for Virology and Immunobiology, University of Wuerzburg. Bhupesh does research in Microbiology and Virology. His current research focuses on ciHHV-6 reactivation and its clinical consequences.
Professor Lutz Schomburg, Charité University Hospital, Germany /
The Tronstad Lab investigates cell metabolism and mitochondrial biology.
Professor Maureen Hanson, Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, New York, USA
Dr Rob Wüst, Vrije University Amsterdam, Netherlands
Professor Nancy Klimas, Nova Southeastern University, Florida, USA
Dr Violetta Renesca, Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine, Department of Clinical Immunology, Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, USA
Dr Irina R Rozenfeld, Nova Southeastern University, Florida, USA
Dr Jesper Mehlsen, Research Director, Coordinating Research Centre, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark Co-chair European ME Research Group
Dr Jesper Mehlsen graduated as a medical doctor in 1979 and finished his specialist training in 1990.
He has published more than 140 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals, mainly on the autonomic nervous system and more recently
on complex diseases possibly resulting form HPV-vaccination.
For more than 35 years, he has worked clinically and in research with dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.
Such dysfunction may lead to symptoms from a number of different organs often dominated by diminished control of blood pressure
and heart rate.
Over the past 5 years, he has worked clinically and in research with patients who suspect side effects due to HPV vaccination to
be the cause of a number of symptoms, common to those seen in chronic ME.
Dr Mehlsen is co-chair of the European ME Research Group (EMERG).
Dr Dezső Modos, Imperial College London, UK
Rowan Gardner, Co-founder, precisionLife, UK
Rowan has over 30 years of experience working in innovative businesses applying computational methods to life science and patient data to understand disease and find new medicines and treatments for unmet medical needs. She is an experienced entrepreneur and advisor to fast growing companies and is a Co-founder and Chief Business and Investment Officer of PrecisionLife, expanding precision medicine in chronic disease. She is also on the board of Digital Health and Care Wales a strategic health authority tasked with the digital transformation of NHS in Wales, and is responsible for oversight of the digital governance and safety committee. Rowan holds a Masters in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and played a part in one of the university's first spinouts, Oxford Molecular Group, when it listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1994. She collaborated with the pioneering team at CERN to disseminate the applications to cloud computing frameworks in healthcare and pharmaceutical research.
Dr. Gunnar Gottschalk, Simmaron Research Inc, USA
Carl Gunnar Gottschalk completed his BS in biology at Sierra Nevada College and MS in Biotechnology at Rush University Medical Center. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Rush University Medical Center. Dr. Gottschalk has been with Simmaron Research since its formation. Prior to attending graduate school, Dr. Gottschalk was the lead research coordinator for Sierra Internal Medicine and was responsible for the execution of several large multi-centered investigations in ME/CFS. In 2020, he was named the Foundation’s Executive Director. Since then, Dr. Gottschalk has served a dual role in the organisation as the Executive Director and Principal Investigator. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Gottschalk led Simmaron’s Local Response to COVID-19 Program in collaboration with Konstance Knox, PhD member of the Simmaron Scientific Advisory Board and CEO of Coppe Laboratories. This program provided free critical early access to COVID testing for residents of North Lake Tahoe, supported the development of the Simmaron COVID-19 Biobank and initiated a number of related research projects. At present, Dr. Gottschalk is the PI for Simmaron’s multi-centered clinical trial of Rapamycin in ME/CFS. His laboratory is located at the Indiana Center for Biomedical Innovation (ICBI) on the campus of the Indiana University Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, IN.
Dr David Systrom
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA
Professor Ronald Davis, Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California, USA
Ronald W. Davis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California.
He is a world leader in the development of biotechnology, especially the development of recombinant DNA and genomic methodologies and their application to biological systems.
At Stanford University, where he is Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center, Dr. Davis focuses on the interface of nano-fabricated solid state devices and biological systems.
He and his research team also develop novel technologies for the genetic, genomic, and molecular analysis of a wide range of model organisms as well as humans.
The team's focus on practical application of these technologies is setting the standard for clinical genomics.
Professor Simon Carding, Quadram Institute, UK
Research Leader, Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich Research Park, UK
-
Further Information
Dr Vicky Whittemore
Program Director,
Division of Neuroscience,
National Institutes of Health, USA
Dr David Systrom
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA
Dr Bhupesh Prusty, Institute for Virology and Immunobiology, University of Wuerzburg, Germany
Bhupesh Prusty currently works at the Institute for Virology and Immunobiology, University of Wuerzburg. Bhupesh does research in Microbiology and Virology. His current research focuses on ciHHV-6 reactivation and its clinical consequences.
Professor Karl Johan Tronstad, Institute for Biomedicine , Tronstad Lab, Bergen, Norway
The Tronstad Lab investigates cell metabolism and mitochondrial biology.
Professor Nancy Klimas, Nova Southeastern University, Florida, USA
Professor Alain Moreau, University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre CRCHUM · Biochemistry and molecular medicine
Professor Maureen Hanson, Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, New York, USA
Dr Avindra Nath, NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Coming Soon
Dr. Nath received his MD degree from Christian Medical College in India in 1981 and completed a residency in Neurology from University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, followed by a fellowship in Multiple Sclerosis and Neurovirology at the same institution and then a fellowship in Neuro-AIDS at NINDS.
He held faculty positions at the University of Manitoba (1990-97) and the University of Kentucky (1997-02).
In 2002, he joined Johns Hopkins University as Professor of Neurology and Director of the Division of Neuroimmunology and Neurological Infections.
He joined NIH in 2011 as the Clinical Director of NINDS, the Director of the Translational Neuroscience Center and Chief of the Section of Infections of the Nervous System.
His research focuses on understanding the pathophysiology of retroviral infections of the nervous system and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for these diseases.
Dr Dag Storla, Røysumtunet Hospital, Norway
Professor Jonas Bergquist, Full Chair Professor in Analytical Chemistry and Neurochemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Uppsala University, Sweden
Dr Jesper Mehlsen, Research Director, Coordinating Research Centre, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark Co-chair European ME Research Group
Dr Jesper Mehlsen graduated as a medical doctor in 1979 and finished his specialist training in 1990.
He has published more than 140 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals, mainly on the autonomic nervous system and more recently
on complex diseases possibly resulting form HPV-vaccination.
For more than 35 years, he has worked clinically and in research with dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.
Such dysfunction may lead to symptoms from a number of different organs often dominated by diminished control of blood pressure
and heart rate.
Over the past 5 years, he has worked clinically and in research with patients who suspect side effects due to HPV vaccination to
be the cause of a number of symptoms, common to those seen in chronic ME.
Dr Mehlsen is co-chair of the European ME Research Group (EMERG).
Professor Kristian Sommerfelt Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
Kristian Sommerfelt is a paediatrician. He completed his medical degree at the University of Bergen in 1981 and specialist in paediatrics in 1994.
Dr degree in 1997 with the theme of premature children and later development.
Since 1987, he has worked at the Children's Clinic (now the Children's and Adolescent Clinic) at Haukeland University Hospital, now as senior physician at the
section for pediatric neurology and habilitation.
Kristian has adjunct position as professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine 2, University of Bergen. He specialises in headaches, epilepsy and ME/CFS, but
has broad experience in the entire field of child neurology.
For the past 12 years, he has had a special interest in children and young people with ME/CFS, both directly with patient work and in research. He is particularly
concerned with investigation, diagnosis and the transfer of knowledge to the first-line service and school.
He has broad scientific experience with articles in international journals and authorship of chapters in several medical textbooks.
He is a member of the
European ME Research Group (EMERG).
Professor Robert Phair, Chief Scientific Officer, Integrative Bioinformatics, Inc., USA
Dr. Robert Phair, a systems biologist whose Ph.D. is in Physiology, is an internationally known expert in the area of kinetic modeling, with over 35 years of experience in the modeling of complex biological systems. He started his academic life with a degree in Electrical Engineering at MIT with the intention to apply engineering analysis to complex biological systems. He was a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for 16 years before co-founding Integrative Bioinformatics, Inc (IBI), a scientific consultancy in Silicon Valley, with a focus on cellular and molecular systems,where a systematic approach has been developed to model biological systems that allows effective testing of complex hypotheses against available experimental data.
Professor Ronald Davis, Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California, USA
Ronald W. Davis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California.
He is a world leader in the development of biotechnology, especially the development of recombinant DNA and genomic methodologies and their application to biological systems.
At Stanford University, where he is Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center, Dr. Davis focuses on the interface of nano-fabricated solid state devices and biological systems.
He and his research team also develop novel technologies for the genetic, genomic, and molecular analysis of a wide range of model organisms as well as humans.
The team's focus on practical application of these technologies is setting the standard for clinical genomics.
Professor Simon Carding, Quadram Institute, UK
Research Leader, Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich Research Park, UK
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Professor Leonard Jason
Dr Leonard Jason, DePaul University, Chicago
Dr Leonard Jason has been among the most prolific of all ME/CFS researchers. For more than a decade, Dr Jason and his team at DePaul University’s Centre for Community Research in Chicago have worked to define the scope and impact of ME/CFS worldwide. Dr Jason is Vice President of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (now the IACFS/ME) and has been a key driver of CFS research since 1991, and is uniquely positioned to support collaboration between CFS researchers, patients, and government decision makers. His studies have shown that the direct and indirect costs of ME/CFS amount to $20 billion in the U.S. each year, and more than 1 million people suffer from ME/CFS as opposed to the estimated 20,000 people originally reported by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Professor Nora Chapman
Professor Nora Chapman, University of Nebraska, USA
Professor of Pathology and Associate Professor, University of Nebraska
Dr. Champan's primary research focus is on group B coxsackieviruses and their receptor(s). Professor Nora Chapman is a Research Scientist at the University of Nebraska Enterovirus Research Laboratory and Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre.
Professor Chapman studies persistent coxsackie infections in murine models of chronic myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy.
She and her associates have demonstrated that selection of defective enterovirus in heart and other tissues leads to persistent infections despite active antiviral immune responses.
Professor Chapman is presently studying the mode of selection of these viruses and the effects of replication of these viruses upon infected cell function.
Professor Chapman and her associates at the University of Nebraska are further investigating Dr. John Chia’s work in regards to enterovirus in the gut biopsies.
(From the Enterovirus Foundation site - click here)
Dr John Chia
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Dr Paul Cheney MD, PhD
Medical Director of the Cheney Clinic in Asheville, North Carolina, USA
For more than 25 years, Dr. Cheney has been a pioneering clinical researcher in the field of ME/CFS and has been an internationally recognized authority on the subject of ME/CFS.
He has published numerous articles and lectured around the world on ME/CFS. Dr. Cheney has been interested in many aspects of ME/CFS, and is author or co-author of numerous publications and scientific presentations in a range of fields relevant to the illness.
While practicing in Lake Tahoe in 1984-1987, Dr. Cheney, along with Dr. Dan Peterson, helped lead a research effort with the NIH, the CDC and Harvard University School of Medicine studying a localized outbreak of what would eventually be known as ME/CFS.
He was a founding Director of the American Association of CFS (now the International Association for CFS/ME).
Dr. Cheney holds a PhD in Physics from Duke University in Durham, NC and is a graduate (MD) of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA where he also completed his internal medicine residency. He is a board certified internist.
More recently, Dr. Cheney has been engaged in investigating the cardiac function of CFS patients, using Impedance Cardiography and Doppler Echocardiography. According to his paper presented at the 2007 IACFS/ME conference, "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients exhibit evidence of diastolic dysfunction at a level well above that reported for control populations of the same age. Energy dependent diastolic dysfunction would appear to be a hallmark of CFS and supports the hypothesis that CFS is a syndrome of cellular energy deficiency."
Since 1990, Dr. Cheney has headed the Cheney Clinic, presently located in Asheville, NC. The Cheney Clinic specializes in evaluating CFS patients and has expertise in diagnosis, disability support for and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome. No single clinic has drawn as many CFS patients (currently over 5,000) from as many states (48) and foreign countries (22) as has the Cheney Clinic.
The Cheney Clinic has evaluated over 8,000 patients from 48 states and 24 foreign countries and participated in an FDA-approved multi-center , a biological response pharmaceutical drug trial using Ampligen, a biological response modifier.
For more than 25 years, Dr. Cheney has been a pioneering clinical researcher in the field of ME/CFS and has been an internationally recognized authority on the subject of ME/CFS.
He has published numerous articles and lectured around the world on ME/CFS. Dr. Cheney has been interested in many aspects of ME/CFS, and is author or co-author of numerous publications and scientific presentations in a range of fields relevant to the illness.
While practicing in Lake Tahoe in 1984-1987, Dr. Cheney, along with Dr. Dan Peterson, helped lead a research effort with the NIH, the CDC and Harvard University School of Medicine studying a localized outbreak of what would eventually be known as ME/CFS.
He was a founding Director of the American Association of CFS (now the International Association for CFS/ME).
Dr. Cheney holds a PhD in Physics from Duke University in Durham, NC and is a graduate (MD) of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA where he also completed his internal medicine residency. He is a board certified internist.
More recently, Dr. Cheney has been engaged in investigating the cardiac function of CFS patients, using Impedance Cardiography and Doppler Echocardiography. According to his paper presented at the 2007 IACFS/ME conference, "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients exhibit evidence of diastolic dysfunction at a level well above that reported for control populations of the same age. Energy dependent diastolic dysfunction would appear to be a hallmark of CFS and supports the hypothesis that CFS is a syndrome of cellular energy deficiency."
Since 1990, Dr. Cheney has headed the Cheney Clinic, presently located in Asheville, NC. The Cheney Clinic specializes in evaluating CFS patients and has expertise in diagnosis, disability support for and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome. No single clinic has drawn as many CFS patients (currently over 5,000) from as many states (48) and foreign countries (22) as has the Cheney Clinic.
The Cheney Clinic has evaluated over 8,000 patients from 48 states and 24 foreign countries and participated in an FDA-approved multi-center , a biological response pharmaceutical drug trial using Ampligen, a biological response modifier.
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Dr Nancy Klimas
Nancy Klimas, MD, has more than 30 years of professional experience and has achieved international recognition for her research and clinical efforts in multi-symptom disorders, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Gulf War Illness (GWI), Fibromyalgia, and other Neuro Immune Disorders. She is immediate past president of the International Association for CFS and ME (IACFS/ME), a professional organization of clinicians and investigators, and is also a member of the VA Research Advisory Committee for GWI, the NIH P2P CFS Committee, and the Institute of Medicine ME/CFS Review Panel. Dr. Klimas has advised three Secretaries of Health and Human Services, including Kathleen Sabelius, during her repeated service on the Health and Human Services CFS Advisory Committee. Dr. Klimas has been featured on Good Morning America, in USA Today and the New York Times.
.-
References
Professor Brigitte Huber
Professor Brigitte Huber, Tufts University, USA
Brigitte Huber is Professor of pathology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She has studied the presence of a specific retrovirus(HERV-K18) as a predictor for ME/CFS, as people who develop ME/CFS may be susceptible to activation of this ancient retrovirus in the human genome.
Annette Whittemore
Coming Soon
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Founder and President of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA.
The Institute is located on the medical campus of the University of Nevada.
Its mission is to serve those with complex neuro-immune diseases such as ME/CFS,
viral induced central nervous system dysfunction and fibromyalgia. Annette Whittemore
graduated in Elementary and Special Education at the University of Nevada and taught
children with neuro-cognitive deficits, such as those found in autism, ADD, and learning
disabilities. As the president and director of the current operations at the Institute
Annette supports the basic and clinical research program, and actively recruits physicians
and other support personnel for the Institute.
Dr Judy Mikovits
Dr Judy Mikovits, Research Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from George Washington University. She is Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Nevada CFS centre for Neuro-Immune disorders and has co-authored over 40 peer reviewed publications that address fundamental issues of viral pathogenesis, hematopoiesis and cytokine biology.
Plenary Session
At the end of the conference more questions were taken from the audience with Professor Malcolm Hooper mediating. .
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
-
IiMER Links
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Emeritus Professor Sunderland UniversityConference Chair
Coming soon
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Dr Leonard Jason
CASE DEFINITIONS OF ME/CFS – INCLUDING PAEDIATRIC CASE DEFINITIONDePaul University, Chicago
Dr Leonard Jason, DePaul University, Chicago
Dr Leonard Jason has been among the most prolific of all ME/CFS researchers. For more than a decade, Dr Jason and his team at DePaul University’s Centre for Community Research in Chicago have worked to define the scope and impact of ME/CFS worldwide. Dr Jason is Vice President of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (now the IACFS/ME) and has been a key driver of CFS research since 1991, and is uniquely positioned to support collaboration between CFS researchers, patients, and government decision makers. His studies have shown that the direct and indirect costs of ME/CFS amount to $20 billion in the U.S. each year, and more than 1 million people suffer from ME/CFS as opposed to the estimated 20,000 people originally reported by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Dr Jonathan Kerr
GENE EXPRESSION IN ME/CFS: A MEANS OF SUBTYPINGSt. George’s University of London
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Dr Martin Lerner
DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF ME/CFS LONGITUDINAL OBSERVATIONS OF CARDIAC AND ANTIVIRAL STUDIESInfectious Disease Specialist, Michigan, USA
Dr Martin Lerner, Infectious Disease Specialist, Michigan, USA
Dr. Lerner was a professor of Internal Medicine, and served as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases for the School of Medicine and Detroit Receiving Hospital from 1963 to 1982. He was chief of the Department of Medicine at Hutzel Hospital from 1970 to 1982.
He established a clinical virology laboratory at the School of Medicine and trained 33 physicians in infectious diseases. He published several groundbreaking papers on Herpes Encephalitics, pneumonia, cardiomyopathy and immunology.
His efforts on behalf of CFS patients led to his development of the Energy Index Patient Score, a functional capacity measurement tool used to diagnose patient fatigue at a time when such a benchmark was lacking. The development of the EIPS resulted in one of his five patents related to the diagnosis and treatment of CFS.
In 2010, Dr. Lerner received the Heart Award from Mothers Against Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, an international advocacy organization representing patients around the world with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or CFS, for his more than 25 years of research on the condition and treating CFS patients.
Dr. Lerner received his medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine and completed his residency in Internal Medicine with Harvard Medical Services at Boston City Hospital and Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. He served two years with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Unit, and conducted a three-year research fellowship in Infectious Disease at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory, Boston City Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
He was an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Association of Physicians, as well as a master of the American College of Physicians and governor of the Michigan American College of Physicians.
Dr Julia Newton
AUTONOMIC DYSFUNCTION: IDENTIFICATION OF AETIOLOGICALLY DISTINCT SUBJECT GROUPS WITHIN ME/CFSInstitute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, UK
Dr Julia Newton - Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, UK
Dr Julia Newton is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University. Dr Newton has been working on autonomic dysfunction in ME/CFS patients and will be presenting results of her continuing research.
Dr John Chia
RESEARCH ON THE ROLE OF CHRONIC ENTEROVIRUS INFECTION IN CFS/MEInfectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Dr Irving Spurr
A GP’S EXPERIENCES OF DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENTS OF ME/CFSGP, UK
Dr Irving Spurr - GP, UK
Dr Irving Spurr is a GP and brings enormous experience of ME/CFS to the conference. Dr Spurr worked with Dr John Richardson on enteroviruses and their implication in ME and is chairman of the John Richardson Group.
Dr Jean Monro
CASE STUDIES OF DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENTS FOR ME/CFSMedical Director of the Breakspear Hospital, UK
Dr Jean Monro - Medical Director of the Breakspear Hospital, UK
Dr Jean Monro is the Medical Director of the Breakspear Hospital and is an internationally recognised specialist in environmental medicine. Dr Monro is a Fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, a Board Certified US examination. Dr Monro was Medical Advisor to Sanity and Medical Advisor to the Coeliac Association. In early 2007, Dr Monro was asked to be a witness for the House of Lords' Select Committee on Science and Technology on allergy treatments.
Dr Judy Mikovits
HOW SUB GROUPING WILL AFFECT RESEARCH STRATEGIESResearch Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits, Research Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from George Washington University. She is Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Nevada CFS centre for Neuro-Immune disorders and has co-authored over 40 peer reviewed publications that address fundamental issues of viral pathogenesis, hematopoiesis and cytokine biology.
IIMEC3 Plenary Session
HOW SUB GROUPING WILL AFFECT RESEARCH STRATEGIESResearch Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
IIMEC3 Plenary Session
Plenary session at the end of the IIMEC3 Conference.
Interview with Dr John Chia
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperOrganised by Invest in ME
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Interview with IIMEC3 Presenters
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperOrganised by Invest in ME
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Norman Lamb MP
Member of UK Parliament for Norwich NorthKynote Speech
Norman Lamb MP - MP for Norwich North
Norman Lamb entered Parliament at his second attempt in 2001, gaining this seat from the Conservatives.
Norman Lamb read law at the University of Leicester. He worked for Norwich City Council as a senior assistant solicitor before joining Norfolk solicitors Steele and Co., where he became a partner and head of the firm's specialist Employment Unit.
He worked for a year as a Parliamentary Assistant for Greville Janner, QC, MP.
He was a member of Norwich City Council 1987-91, leading the Liberal Democrats for the last two years of his term.
He has built a strong reputation in Norfolk as a campaigner for improved health services. He has been a critic of cuts in bed numbers and has highlighted the resulting unacceptable level of cancelled operations.
As an MP his work on local issues includes adjournment debates on: orthopaedic waiting times in Norfolk; the lack of school transport services in North Norfolk; police funding in Norfolk; funding for Further Education Colleges; the provision of care for people with dementia; and coastal erosion. Norman has been Lib Dem Deputy Spokesperson for International Development (2001-02), a Treasury spokesman (2002-03), PPS (Parliamentary Private Secretary) to Charles Kennedy (2003-05) and Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary (2005-06). He was a principal author of the party's policy on Royal Mail. From March to December 2006, Norman was Chief of Staff for party leader Sir Menzies Campbell.
In December 2006 he was appointed Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary. He has a particular interest in Africa: he has led Adjournment Debates on the HIV/AIDS crisis facing Africa and Asia, the controversial sale of military air traffic control system in Tanzania and the situation in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Dr Derek Pheby
Dr Derek PhebyCase Study - Epidemiology of ME/CFS
Dr. Derek Pheby - Senior Fellow, University of Hull
Epidemiological Research and the ME Observatory plus Factors involved in the development of Severe ME
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Dr Jonathan KerrVIRAL AND HUMAN GENE EXPRESSION, DEVELOPMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC TEST, NEWS OF CLINICAL TRIALS
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Professor Kenny De Meirleir
Director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic, Vrije Universiteit BrusselsTREATMENTS FOR ME/CFS INTEGRATIVE & COMPLIMENTARY MEDICINE
Professor De Meirleir is a professor of Physiology and Internal Medicine at Free University of Brussels in Belgium. He is co-editor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Biological Approach, co-editor of the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and reviewer for more than 10 other medical journals. Dr. De Meirleir was one of four international experts on the panel that developed the Canadian Consensus Document for ME/CFS. He assesses/treats 3,000 to 4,000 ME/CFS patients annually. Professor Kenny L. De Meirleir, MD received his medical degree at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Magna cum laude. His research activities in Chronic Fatigue date back to 1990. His other research activities in exercise physiology, metabolism and endocrinology have led to the Solvay Prize and the NATO research award. He is director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as well as consultant in the Division of Cardiology and director of the cardiac rehabilitation program at Vrijie Universiteit Brussel.
A Model ME/CFS Clinic - The CFS Clinic
Annette WhittemoreWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Founder and President of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA.
The Institute is located on the medical campus of the University of Nevada.
Its mission is to serve those with complex neuro-immune diseases such as ME/CFS,
viral induced central nervous system dysfunction and fibromyalgia. Annette Whittemore
graduated in Elementary and Special Education at the University of Nevada and taught
children with neuro-cognitive deficits, such as those found in autism, ADD, and learning
disabilities. As the president and director of the current operations at the Institute
Annette supports the basic and clinical research program, and actively recruits physicians
and other support personnel for the Institute.
Dr Dan Peterson
Biomedical Research into MEWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Daniel L. Peterson, Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, M.D., is an internist in Incline Village, Nevada and recognized medical expert on CFS/ME. Dr. Peterson is founder of Simmaron Research, and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Peterson has devoted 25 years of his clinical career to diagnosing and caring for patients with CFS/ME and related neuroimmune disorders, and collaborating with researchers to better understand the illness. Dr. Peterson’s repository of more than 1,000 patient biological samples and records is a rich resource for research studies. His experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
With over 25 years of medical practice, Dr Daniel L. Peterson has become a sought-after internist for diagnosing difficult and complex medical cases.
When several patients in Incline Village became ill with symptoms that resembled persistent mononucleosis, Daniel Peterson was one of the first physicians to recognize an outbreak of what is known as ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). He became a pioneering physician and researcher in understanding the biological characteristics and methods for diagnosing, managing and treating ME/CFS. He has also performed major studies of Ampligen as a treatment for ME/CFS, and studying the possible role of human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) in CFS patients.
Dr. Peterson's experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
Other Links
Dr Vance Spence
Biomedical Research into ME/CFS: Where does it go from hereDr. Vance Spence - Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine,University of Dundee Medical School, UK
Dr. Spence is a graduate of the Universities of London and Dundee. He was a Principal Clinical Scientist responsible for vascular services and research and, in 1997, he rejoined the University of Dundee Medical School as Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine.
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Emeritus Professor Sunderland UniversityDay 1 - Summary of “KEY FINDINGS” of Past Biomedical Research
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Ellen Piro
President of the Norwegian ME ForeningDay 1 - NICE Guidelines - Experiences from Norway
Ellen Piro, President of the Norwegian ME Forening
Ellen Piro is the president of the Norwegian M.E. Association. In 1995 she circulated a worldwide petition to get the CFS name changed and she personally brought it to the Dublin CFS conference to urge the scientists to make a change. Recently Ellen has been involved in the investigation into the use of meningitis vaccines in Norway and New Zealand and which has ben connected with the cases of over 250 ME patients. She has also contributed to the debate on the Norwegian equivalent of the NICE guidelines.
Dr Byron Hyde
Dr Byron HydeME AND INSURANCE COMPANIES
Dr. Byron Hyde
Dr. Byron Hyde attended the Haileybury School of Mines and worked as a geophysicist. He then did premedicine in the Faculty of Medicine and University College, University of Toronto, obtaining a degree in chemistry and nutrition. He graduated in medicine from the University of Ottawa where he was the Director and Chief of the International Exchange Program for the Canadian Association of Medical Students and Interns (CAMSI). Dr. Hyde founded the International Summer School in Tropical Medicine. He interned at Hotel Dieu in Montreal, was a resident at St. Justine Hospital in Montreal and at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He also studied in Munich at the University Kinderklinik and in Paris at the Necker Hospital for Children.
He was a research chemist at the Roscoe B. Jackson Laboratory at Bar Harbour, Maine, a leading world laboratory in immunological research. Following this, he was Chief Technician in charge of the Electron Microscope Laboratory in Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children, followed by a similar post at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hyde has authored a book on Electron Microscopy and two non-medical books.
Dr. Hyde has been a physician for 25 years and has performed charitable work as a physician in Laos and the Caribbean. He held the position of Chairman of the Ottawa Community Health Services Association, and is presently Chairman of The Nightingale Research Foundation. In 1984, Dr. Hyde began the full-time study of the disease process then known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (renamed in 1986 by Dr. Gary Holmes in the USA to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).
He has worked exclusively with M.E./CFS patients since 1985. In 1988, Dr. Hyde organized an association and founded The Nightingale Research Foundation, dedicated to the study of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He has also acted as Chairman of the 1990 Cambridge Easter Symposium and of the Workshop on Canadian Research Directions for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic fatigue Syndrome in May, 1991, at the University of British Columbia. (the above was extracted from the Nightingale Foundation.)
Other Links
Plenary Session
Questions to the speakers on Day 1 of the conference.
Annette Whittemore and Dr Dan Peterson
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Ellen Piro and Dr Byron Hyde
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperDay 1 of #IIMEC2
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Dr Ian Gibson
Former Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
-
References
Professor Martin Pall
Professor Martin Pall, Professor School of Molecular Biosciences WWAMI Program Washington State University
Dr. Pall has long-term interests in biological regulatory mechanisms. His current research is focussed on a theory he has developed on the cause (etiology) of chronic fatigue syndrome and the overlapping and related conditions of multiple chemical sensitivity, fibromyalgia, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
According to this theory, each of these is initiated by stresses that induce increased levels of nitric oxide and its oxidant product peroxynitrite, followed by a biochemical vicious cycle mechanism associated with chronic elevation of these two compounds. Symptoms of these conditions are produced by both nitric oxide and peroxynitrite and treatment should focus on downregulating this vicious cycle mechanism. Vitamin B-12 injections commonly used to treat these conditions are proposed to act through the action of one form of B-12 (hydroxocobalamin) which is a potent nitric oxide scavenger. Dozens of biochemical and physiological observations provide support for this theory. The most puzzling features of these conditions are explained by this novel theory.
Dr. Abhijit Chaudhuri
Dr. Abhijit ChaudhuriPathology of ME/CFS
Dr. Abhijit Chaudhuri
Dr Vance Spence
Vascular Aspects of ME/CFSDr. Vance Spence - Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine,University of Dundee Medical School, UK
Dr. Spence is a graduate of the Universities of London and Dundee. He was a Principal Clinical Scientist responsible for vascular services and research and, in 1997, he rejoined the University of Dundee Medical School as Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine.
Dr. Sarah Myhill
Dr. Sarah Myhill GPDay 2 - Treatments and Diagnosis – A GP’s Perspective
Dr Sarah Myhill - GP, UK
Dr. Myhill is a general practitioner with a particular interest in chronic fatigue syndrome. She qualified from Middlesex Hospital Medical School with honours in 1981 and has worked in the NHS and in private practice. Dr. Myhill has consulted over 100 farmers with CFS following organophosphate poisoning and 100 women with CFS following silicone poisoning either from breast implants or injection. Over the past twenty years Dr. Myhill estimates to have seen over 1,500 cases of chronic fatigue syndrome largely caused by viral infection. During the early years she reported these cases individually to the Medical Devices Agency.
Professor Kenny De Meirleir
Director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic, Vrije Universiteit BrusselsDay 2 - Treatments for ME/CFS Integrative & Complimentary Medicine
Professor De Meirleir is a professor of Physiology and Internal Medicine at Free University of Brussels in Belgium. He is co-editor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Biological Approach, co-editor of the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and reviewer for more than 10 other medical journals. Dr. De Meirleir was one of four international experts on the panel that developed the Canadian Consensus Document for ME/CFS. He assesses/treats 3,000 to 4,000 ME/CFS patients annually. Professor Kenny L. De Meirleir, MD received his medical degree at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Magna cum laude. His research activities in Chronic Fatigue date back to 1990. His other research activities in exercise physiology, metabolism and endocrinology have led to the Solvay Prize and the NATO research award. He is director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as well as consultant in the Division of Cardiology and director of the cardiac rehabilitation program at Vrijie Universiteit Brussel.
Dr Byron Hyde
Nightingale FoundationDay 2 - CFS patient and the resulting pathological findings or Case Studies / Thyroid Problems
Dr. Byron Hyde
Dr. Byron Hyde attended the Haileybury School of Mines and worked as a geophysicist. He then did premedicine in the Faculty of Medicine and University College, University of Toronto, obtaining a degree in chemistry and nutrition. He graduated in medicine from the University of Ottawa where he was the Director and Chief of the International Exchange Program for the Canadian Association of Medical Students and Interns (CAMSI). Dr. Hyde founded the International Summer School in Tropical Medicine. He interned at Hotel Dieu in Montreal, was a resident at St. Justine Hospital in Montreal and at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He also studied in Munich at the University Kinderklinik and in Paris at the Necker Hospital for Children.
He was a research chemist at the Roscoe B. Jackson Laboratory at Bar Harbour, Maine, a leading world laboratory in immunological research. Following this, he was Chief Technician in charge of the Electron Microscope Laboratory in Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children, followed by a similar post at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hyde has authored a book on Electron Microscopy and two non-medical books.
Dr. Hyde has been a physician for 25 years and has performed charitable work as a physician in Laos and the Caribbean. He held the position of Chairman of the Ottawa Community Health Services Association, and is presently Chairman of The Nightingale Research Foundation. In 1984, Dr. Hyde began the full-time study of the disease process then known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (renamed in 1986 by Dr. Gary Holmes in the USA to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).
He has worked exclusively with M.E./CFS patients since 1985. In 1988, Dr. Hyde organized an association and founded The Nightingale Research Foundation, dedicated to the study of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He has also acted as Chairman of the 1990 Cambridge Easter Symposium and of the Workshop on Canadian Research Directions for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic fatigue Syndrome in May, 1991, at the University of British Columbia. (the above was extracted from the Nightingale Foundation.)
Other Links
Dr Jonathan Kerr
St. George’s University of LondonDay 2 - VIRAL AND HUMAN GENE EXPRESSION, DEVELOPMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC TEST, NEWS OF CLINICAL TRIALS
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Dr Dan Peterson
Biomedical Research into MEWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Daniel L. Peterson, Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, M.D., is an internist in Incline Village, Nevada and recognized medical expert on CFS/ME. Dr. Peterson is founder of Simmaron Research, and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Peterson has devoted 25 years of his clinical career to diagnosing and caring for patients with CFS/ME and related neuroimmune disorders, and collaborating with researchers to better understand the illness. Dr. Peterson’s repository of more than 1,000 patient biological samples and records is a rich resource for research studies. His experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
With over 25 years of medical practice, Dr Daniel L. Peterson has become a sought-after internist for diagnosing difficult and complex medical cases.
When several patients in Incline Village became ill with symptoms that resembled persistent mononucleosis, Daniel Peterson was one of the first physicians to recognize an outbreak of what is known as ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). He became a pioneering physician and researcher in understanding the biological characteristics and methods for diagnosing, managing and treating ME/CFS. He has also performed major studies of Ampligen as a treatment for ME/CFS, and studying the possible role of human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) in CFS patients.
Dr. Peterson's experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
Other Links
Professor Malcolm Hooper
SUMMARY - FUTURE STRATEGY FOR ME RESEARCH, DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENTEmeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
IIMEC2 Day 2 Plenary Session
PANEL DISCUSSION: THE WAY FORWARD FOLLOWED BY OPEN FORUMQuestions from the audience at IIMEC2 Day 2
Questions to the speakers on Day 2 of the conference.
Interview Dr Ian Gibson MP and Sarah Vero
with Professor Malcolm HooperFollowing the Gibson Inquiry into ME
The Gibson Inquiry 2006
Dr. Ian Gibson MP for Norwich North called for an independent inquiry into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and set up a working group.
Read more of the Inquiry into the
status of status of
CFS/M.E. and M.E. and
research into research into
causes and
treatment
- click here
Dr Nigel Speight
Paediatrics and MEDay 2 - Paediatrics and ME
Dr Nigel Speight
Dr Nigel Speight was a consultant paediatrician in Durham for over 25 years. He has seen a large number of cases of childhood ME in his own area and has frequently been called on to support cases of where children have been treated poorly by social and healthcare services. He has played a major role in rescuing children from care proceedings and is well qualified to comment on the state of treatment of ME patients. Dr Speight presented at the 2nd Invest in ME Research International ME Conference 2007 in London and gave the pre-conference dinner keynote speech at the 9th Invest in ME Research International ME COnference in 2014. He is considered to be one of the most experienced ME consultants in the UK.
Further Information
Read more of the The General Medical Council - Dr Nigel Speight
- click here
IIMEC14 Pre-Conference Dinner Presentation
Dr Ian GibsonFormer Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
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References
Opening of 14th International ME Conference - IIMEC14
Dr Ian Gibson#InvestinMEresearch
Former Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
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References
ME Research Update at Centres for Disease Control, USA
Dr Elizabeth R. UngerChief of Chronic Viral Diseases Branch, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Elizabeth (Beth) Unger, PhD, MD, received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA. She then earned her PhD and MD in the Division of Biologic Sciences at the University of Chicago where she also began a residency in pathology. Her residency and fellowship was completed at Pennsylvania State University Medical Center. During this time, Dr. Unger developed a practical method of colorimetic in situ hybridization. This work led to interest in tissue localization of HPV and ultimately to her initial appointment to CDC in 1997 to pursue molecular pathology of HPV and CFS.
Dr. Unger has served as the Acting Chief of CVDB since January 2010 and has 13 years of experience in CVDB, where she has participated in the design and implementation of CFS research and HPV laboratory diagnostics. During this time, she was co-author on 25 peer-reviewed manuscripts related to CFS, including the often-cited descriptions of the Wichita and Georgia population-based studies. In addition, Dr. Unger has been instrumental in efforts by WHO to establish an HPV LabNet and serves as lead of a WHO HPV Global Reference Laboratory. She is co-author of 142 peer-reviewed publications and 24 book chapters and serves on the editorial board of six scientific journals. In 2008, for her HPV research accomplishments, she received the Health and Human Services (HHS) Career Achievement Award.
Dr Unger has been selected to serve as the Chief of the Chronic Viral Diseases Branch (CVDB) in the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology (DHCPP), National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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References
ME Research Update at National Institutes of Health, USA
Dr Vicky WhittemoreProgram Director in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health in the United States.
Dr. Whittemore is a Program Director in the Synapses, Channels and Neural Circuits Cluster. Her interest is in understanding the underlying mechanisms of the epilepsies including the study of genetic and animal models of the epilepsies.
The major goal is to identify effective treatments for the epilepsies and to develop preventions. Dr. Whittemore received a Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of Minnesota, followed by post-doctoral work at the University of California, Irvine, and a Fogarty Fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
She was on the faculty of the University of Miami School of Medicine in The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis prior to working with several non-profit organizations including the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, Genetic Alliance, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), and the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG).
She also just completed a four-year term on the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council.
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References
Immune Dysregulation in ME/CFS
Professor Maureen HansonLiberty Hyde Bailey Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, New York, USA
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell
Maureen Hanson is Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
Previously she was on the faculty of the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard, where she also completed her Ph.D. degree.
While most of her prior research has concerned cell and molecular biology in plant cells, she began a research program on ME/CFS after noting at a
2007 IACFS meeting the paucity of molecular biologists studying the illness.
Her lab was part of the 2012 multicenter study organized by Ian Lipkin's group at Columbia University to assess the actual role of XMRV in ME/CFS.
Fingerprinting the Phenotypes of ME/CFS Along the Gut-Immune-Brain Axis
Associate Professor Mady Hornig
Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Associate Professor Mady Hornig
Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Mady Hornig, MA, MD did her undergraduate studies as a College Scholar at Cornell, received an MA in Psychology from The New School for Social Research and an MD from The Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed her residency in psychiatry at The Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and an NIMH/NRSA Neuropsychopharmacology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research leverages large epidemiologic cohorts, novel bench science and animal model studies to determine how microbial, immune and toxic exposures impact upon the brain across the life course, resulting in disorders such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infection (PANDAS), mood disorders, schizophrenia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and age-related cognitive deficits.
Dr. Hornig is internationally known for her work in the growing research arena exploring the mechanisms of gut-immune-brain axis functioning, seeking clues to both the understanding of the roots of dysfunction as well as uncovering pathways that strengthen individual resiliency. She has a keen interest in how diet, exercise and environmental factors affect each individual’s intestinal bacteria – the so-called gut microbiome – which then influences brain function through alterations in blood-borne molecules.
She has identified naturally-occurring substances that appear to strengthen resistance to certain disease states affecting the brain, and is pursuing these as candidates for prevention and intervention in ME/CFS and autism. She uses immune profiling, metabolomic, proteomic, epigenetic and microbiome approaches to identify prenatal and birth biomarkers for brain disorders in large prospective studies in Scandinavia as well as the US. She is also applying these approaches to uncover markers of disturbed immunity and metabolism correlating with the severe clinical deficits that underlie ME/CFS, work launched with support from the Hutchins Family Foundation/Chronic Fatigue Initiative, the National Institutes of Health and the crowd-funding initiative, The Microbe Discovery Project. Perhaps most exciting is that new ME/CFS subsets that appear to have different triggers and may respond differentially to treatment are now being identified through her work.
Dr. Hornig’s approach is enriched by her unusual combination of decades of experience as a clinical researcher, her acumen in defining novel neuropharmacological and nutritional approaches for brain disorders and her ability to carefully tease out factors that enhance resiliency to disease.
In 2004, Dr. Hornig presented to the Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee and testified twice before congressional subcommittees regarding the role of infections and toxins in autism pathogenesis and has lectured on ME/CFS throughout the world. She has over 120 peer-reviewed publications, has edited several books, and has received many academic awards. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Discover Magazine, Nature Medicine, Science, Wired, the Huffington Post, O Magazine, CBS News, and This Week in Virology.
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References
Transient receptor potential ion channels in the aetiology and pathomechanism of CFS/ME
Professor Don StainesThe National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University, Australia
Professor Staines has been a public health physician at Gold Coast Population Health Unit.
He has worked in health services management and public health practice in Australia and overseas.
His interests include collaborative health initiatives with other countries as well as cross-disciplinary initiatives within health. Communicable diseases as well as post infectious fatigue syndromes are his main research interests.
A keen supporter of the Griffith University Medical School, he enjoys teaching and other opportunities to promote awareness of public health in the medical curriculum. He is now Co-Director at The National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University in Australia
Pathophysiological Basis of Fibromyalgia
Dr David AnderssonWolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, Kings College London, UK
David Andersson has been at the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases in London since 2011. Research in David Andersson’s laboratory is centred on sensory transduction mechanisms
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References
Characteristics and Pathophysiological Changes in a Large Cohort of Danish ME-patients
Dr Jesper MehlsenKlinik Mehlsen, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Expertise
Autonomic nervous system; Heart rate and blood pressure control; Cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology;
HPV vaccines and -complications
Main research areas
Methods for the study of autonomic cardiovascular control; Mathematical modelling of cardiovascular control; Autoimmune response to vaccination; Mathematical modeling of the neuroinflammatory reflex
Current research
Mathematical analysis of hemodynamic adaptations to the upright posture.
Mathematical analysis of hemodynamic response to Valsalva manoeuvre
Dynamic T-wave alterations and the autonomic nervous system
Mathematical analysis of cytokine response to LPS in humans
Autoimmunity in patients with possible side effects to HPV vaccination
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References
The Anne Örtegren Memorial Lecture 2019
Remembering the influence of Anne Örtegren
Professor Stuart Bevan
Professor of Pharmacology at the Wolfson Centre for Age Related Disease, Kings College London, UK
Professor Stuart Bevan
Professor Stuart Bevan is Professor of Pharmacology at the Wolfson Centre for Age Related Diseases.From 1997 to 2005, he was Head of the Chronic Pain Unit for Novartis based in the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research laboratories on the UCL campus.
References
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Anne Örtegren
ME Research Developments at Quadram Institute
Professor Simon CardingResearch Leader, Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich Research Park, UK
Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre in Harrow, Professor Carding “emigrated” to the USA to take up a postdoctoral position at New York University School of Medicine, and then at Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow in the Immunobiology Group at Yale University with Profs Kim Bottomly and Charlie Janeway Jr. While at Yale an interest in gamma-delta (γδ) T cells was acquired working closely with Adrian Hayday on molecular genetics and then with Prof. Peter Doherty to establish their role in (viral) infectious disease.
He left Yale after five years to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he developed a research interest in mucosal and GI-tract immunology, performing studies in germfree mice with Prof John Cebra that helped establish the role of gut microbes in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
After 15 years in the USA, he returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds where he established a new research programme on commensal gut bacteria and Bacteroides genetics leading to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform that is being used for developing new interventions for IBD and for mucosal vaccination.
In 2008 he was recruited by UEA and IFR to develop a gut research programme, taking up the Chair of Mucosal Immunology at UEA-MED and the position of head of the Gut Biology Research Programme at IFR, which later became part of the Gut Health and Food Safety (GHFS) Programme.
GHFS research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute.
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References
Rituximab in ME/CFS: a randomised, double-blind and placebo-controlled trial
Professor Øystein Fluge
Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
Professor Øystein Fluge
Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
Øystein Fluge received medical degree in 1988 at the University of Bergen, and is a specialist in oncology since 2004.
He has worked as a Research Fellow with support from the Norwegian Cancer Society and is now chief physician at the Cancer Department, Haukeland University Hospital.
Doctoral work emanates from the Surgical Institute and Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen.
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References
Metabolic profiling and associations to clinical data in ME
Professor Karl Johan TronstadProfessor Institute for Biomedicine , Tronstad Lab, Bergen, Norway
Professor Tronstad completed his graduate studies in biochemistry at the University of Bergen (UiB) in 2002. As postdoc at the Haukeland University Hospital, he studied bioactive compounds with the potential to modulate mitochondrial functions in cancer cells. In 2005 he was recruited to the Department of Biomedicine, UiB, where he started his research group to investigate metabolism and mitochondrial physiology. His laboratory seeks to better our understanding of how defective mitochondrial homeostasis may disturb cell physiology, and how this may be involved in mechanisms of cancer and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).
Karl was involved with the recent paper to come from Bergen - Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight.
The Tronstad Lab investigates cell metabolism and mitochondrial biology and we are very fortunate that he can spare time to participate in the Colloquium.
Specialisms:
Metabolism, Cell biology, Mitochondria, Biochemistry
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References
Integrative Medicine Approach to Treatment of ME
Professor Nancy KlimasDirector, Institute for Neuro Immune Medicine, Nova Southeastern University
Director, Clinical Immunology Research, Miami VAMC
Professor of Medicine, Department of Clinical Immunology, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University
Chair, Department of Clinical Immunology, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University
Professor Emerita, University of Miami, School of Medicine
Nancy Klimas, MD, has more than 30 years of professional experience and has achieved international recognition for her research and clinical efforts in multi-symptom disorders, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Gulf War Illness (GWI), Fibromyalgia, and other Neuro Immune Disorders. She is immediate past president of the International Association for CFS and ME (IACFS/ME), a professional organization of clinicians and investigators, and is also a member of the VA Research Advisory Committee for GWI, the NIH P2P CFS Committee, and the Institute of Medicine ME/CFS Review Panel. Dr. Klimas has advised three Secretaries of Health and Human Services, including Kathleen Sabelius, during her repeated service on the Health and Human Services CFS Advisory Committee. Dr. Klimas has been featured on Good Morning America, in USA Today and the New York Times.
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References
Harvard Plans for Clinical Research into ME/CFS
Dr Ron TompkinsDirector of the Center for Surgery, Science and Bioengineering, Massachusetts General Hospital
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Ronald G. Tompkins, MD, ScD, is the Sumner M. Redstone Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Founding Director of the Center for Surgery, Science & Bioengineering at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Chief of Staff Emeritus at Shriners Hospitals for Children―Boston.
The Center, a division of Surgery at Mass General, is a newly established center for research and innovation based upon the Mass General Burns Division’s collaborative track record and expertise in securing more than $200 million in federal, foundation, and industrial support for basic research and clinical programs.
It is a clinically-driven enterprise that engages in the basic sciences and engineering to solve everyday challenges in clinical medicine. The center promotes the development of new approaches to healthcare delivery and personalized medicine, minimally invasive therapies, as well as a myriad of new technologies such as re-engineered organs, smart nano-pharmaceuticals and nano-diagnostics, and living cell-based microfabricated devices for diagnostics, therapeutics, high-throughput drug screening, and basic and applied biomedical investigation.
He is a board-certified general surgeon with a doctorate in chemical engineering, which provides him with expertise not only in the clinical evaluation of critical care patients, but also in inflammation biology, genomics, proteomics, and computational biology.
Elected as a Director of the American Board of Surgery in 1994, he has received multiple honors including a fellowship from the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and an honorary M.A. from Harvard University. He has served as an officer including as President and Board Member of more than a dozen national and international academic societies. RESEARCH SUMMARY
Dr. Tompkins has published more than 450 research papers in medicine and engineering journals and has contributed to the advancement of science and engineering through service on institutional advisory panels, moderating mini-symposia and workshops on biotechnology, and studying the genomics and proteomics of immunology and metabolism resulting from injury.
Together with his Division colleagues, nearly 300 fellows have been mentored in the Division’s training programs with many excellent success stories.
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References
Ongoing study of physiological and fMRI measures before/after symptom provocation by invasive cardiopulmonary exercise testing
Dr Michael VanElzakker
Neuroscientist, Massachusetts General Hospital/Tufts University, USA
Dr Michael VanElzakker
Neuroscientist, Massachusetts General Hospital/Tufts University, USA
Dr. VanElzakker received a master's degree in behavioral neuroscience at the University of Colorado, working in Dr. Robert Spencer's neuroendocrinology laboratory, and a PhD in experimental clinical psychology at Tufts University, working in Dr. Lisa Shin's psychopathology neuroimaging laboratory. His postdoctoral fellowship is at Massachusetts General Hospital/ Harvard Medical School, at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, in the Division of Neurotherapeutics.
Dr. VanElzakker is interested in uncovering the mechanisms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and of myalgic encephalomyelitis - also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).
His PTSD research uses functional and structural brain imaging, behavioral attention tasks, blood, and genetic data to investigate what makes some individuals vulnerable to PTSD following trauma. He is interested in using non-invasive electroceutical medical devices to enhance safety learning, which may eventually serve as an adjunct to enhance exposure-based therapy for PTSD.
His ME/CFS research uses functional and structural brain imaging to look for abnormal patterns in brain metabolism and inflammation in this patient population. This research focuses on dysfunction at the intersection of the nervous and immune systems and posits that ME/CFS may be what happens when the nervous system detects an exaggerated and ongoing innate immune response. He is interested in using non-invasive electroceutical medical devices to enhance the anti-inflammatory vagus nerve reflex.
From The Center for Surgery, Innovation & Bioengineering
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References
Establishing new mechanistic and diagnostic paradigms for ME/CFS
Professor Ronald Davis
Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California, USA
Professor Ronald Davis
Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California, USA
Ronald W. Davis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California.
He is a world leader in the development of biotechnology, especially the development of recombinant DNA and genomic methodologies and their application to biological systems.
At Stanford University, where he is Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center, Dr. Davis focuses on the interface of nano-fabricated solid state devices and biological systems.
He and his research team also develop novel technologies for the genetic, genomic, and molecular analysis of a wide range of model organisms as well as humans.
The team's focus on practical application of these technologies is setting the standard for clinical genomics.
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References
IIMEC14 PLENARY SESSION
At the end of the conference more questions were taken by the final three speakers. .
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
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IiMER Links
IIMEC13 Pre-Conference Dinner Presentation
Carol HeadLos Angeles, USA
Carol Head, President of the USA organisation Solve ME/CFS Initiative (SMCI), will be giving the pre-conference dinner lecture.
Carol has worked at the Los Angeles Times in a variety of marketing and strategy roles; she served as associate vice president of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee; she has been active in community affairs with an emphasis on human rights for women and girls and amelioration of extreme poverty, serving on three national nonprofit boards, including service as a board chair.
Carol is also a founder of Project Redwood, a venture philanthropy fund that supports creative approaches to alleviating extreme global poverty. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Wellesley College, and earned an MBA from Stanford University.
Solve ME/CFS have, in recent years,established the Ramsay Award Program which provides awards for research teams around the world.
Amongst the successful recipients of the Ramsay grants are research groups which are performing research funded by Invest in ME Research - and this has enabled the research funded by the charity to be extended.
Carol will be discussing on SMCI’s research and advocacy programs and looking at the recent changes in the landscape of ME/CFS in the United States.
Opening of 13th International ME Conference - IIMEC13
Dr Ian Gibson#InvestinMEresearch
Former Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
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References
ME Research Update at Centres for Disease Control, USA
Dr Elizabeth R. UngerChief of Chronic Viral Diseases Branch, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Elizabeth (Beth) Unger, PhD, MD, received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA. She then earned her PhD and MD in the Division of Biologic Sciences at the University of Chicago where she also began a residency in pathology. Her residency and fellowship was completed at Pennsylvania State University Medical Center. During this time, Dr. Unger developed a practical method of colorimetic in situ hybridization. This work led to interest in tissue localization of HPV and ultimately to her initial appointment to CDC in 1997 to pursue molecular pathology of HPV and CFS.
Dr. Unger has served as the Acting Chief of CVDB since January 2010 and has 13 years of experience in CVDB, where she has participated in the design and implementation of CFS research and HPV laboratory diagnostics. During this time, she was co-author on 25 peer-reviewed manuscripts related to CFS, including the often-cited descriptions of the Wichita and Georgia population-based studies. In addition, Dr. Unger has been instrumental in efforts by WHO to establish an HPV LabNet and serves as lead of a WHO HPV Global Reference Laboratory. She is co-author of 142 peer-reviewed publications and 24 book chapters and serves on the editorial board of six scientific journals. In 2008, for her HPV research accomplishments, she received the Health and Human Services (HHS) Career Achievement Award.
Dr Unger has been selected to serve as the Chief of the Chronic Viral Diseases Branch (CVDB) in the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology (DHCPP), National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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References
NIH Common Data Elements
Dr Vicky WhittemoreProgram Director in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health in the United States.
Dr. Whittemore is a Program Director in the Synapses, Channels and Neural Circuits Cluster. Her interest is in understanding the underlying mechanisms of the epilepsies including the study of genetic and animal models of the epilepsies.
The major goal is to identify effective treatments for the epilepsies and to develop preventions. Dr. Whittemore received a Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of Minnesota, followed by post-doctoral work at the University of California, Irvine, and a Fogarty Fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
She was on the faculty of the University of Miami School of Medicine in The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis prior to working with several non-profit organizations including the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, Genetic Alliance, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), and the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG).
She also just completed a four-year term on the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council.
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References
Challenges in study design and identification of patients with post-infectious ME
Dr Avindra NathNIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Dr. Nath received his MD degree from Christian Medical College in India in 1981 and completed a residency in Neurology from University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, followed by a fellowship in Multiple Sclerosis and Neurovirology at the same institution and then a fellowship in Neuro-AIDS at NINDS.
He held faculty positions at the University of Manitoba (1990-97) and the University of Kentucky (1997-02).
In 2002, he joined Johns Hopkins University as Professor of Neurology and Director of the Division of Neuroimmunology and Neurological Infections.
He joined NIH in 2011 as the Clinical Director of NINDS, the Director of the Translational Neuroscience Center and Chief of the Section of Infections of the Nervous System.
His research focuses on understanding the pathophysiology of retroviral infections of the nervous system and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for these diseases.
Links
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References
ME Research Developments at Quadram Institute
Katharine Seton and Fiona NewberryPhD Students, Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich Research Park, UK
The Quadram Institute is an interdisciplinary institute maximising the unique cluster of academic excellence and clinical expertise at the Norwich Research Park, working alongside the food and pharmaceutical industries
.
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References
ME Research Developments at Quadram Institute
Dr Peter Holger JohnsenUniversity Hospital of North Norway, Harstad, Norway - Internal Medicine
Dr Johnsen works in the medical department at the University of Northern Norway in Harstad.
He is currently involved in the clinical trial of FMT which is being funded by the Norwegian Health Council. Five million Norwegian kroner has been awarded for the trial.
The study is supported by Norwegian Research Council. Together, it will be included 78 participants who either receive treatment with FMT from a healthy donor or placebo.
The study is double blinded, which means that neither participants nor scientists will know who received the treatment from donor or placebo before the study ends.
Startup with the inclusion of participants begins during Summer 2018.
Links
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References
Cellular Energetics in ME/CFS
Professor Karl Johan TronstadProfessor Institute for Biomedicine , Tronstad Lab, Bergen, Norway
Professor Tronstad completed his graduate studies in biochemistry at the University of Bergen (UiB) in 2002. As postdoc at the Haukeland University Hospital, he studied bioactive compounds with the potential to modulate mitochondrial functions in cancer cells. In 2005 he was recruited to the Department of Biomedicine, UiB, where he started his research group to investigate metabolism and mitochondrial physiology. His laboratory seeks to better our understanding of how defective mitochondrial homeostasis may disturb cell physiology, and how this may be involved in mechanisms of cancer and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).
Karl was involved with the recent paper to come from Bergen - Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight.
The Tronstad Lab investigates cell metabolism and mitochondrial biology and we are very fortunate that he can spare time to participate in the Colloquium.
Specialisms:
Metabolism, Cell biology, Mitochondria, Biochemistry
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References
Emerging TRP pathology: the way forward in pharmacotherapeutics and treatment
Professor Don StainesThe National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University, Australia
Professor Staines has been a public health physician at Gold Coast Population Health Unit.
He has worked in health services management and public health practice in Australia and overseas.
His interests include collaborative health initiatives with other countries as well as cross-disciplinary initiatives within health. Communicable diseases as well as post infectious fatigue syndromes are his main research interests.
A keen supporter of the Griffith University Medical School, he enjoys teaching and other opportunities to promote awareness of public health in the medical curriculum. He is now Co-Director at The National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University in Australia
ANNE ÖRTEGREN MEMORIAL LECTURE - Mast Cells and ME
Professor Theoharis TheoharidesTufts University, Boston, USA
Professor of Pharmacology and Internal Medicine, Tufts University, Boston, USA
Theoharis Theoharides is Professor of Pharmacology and Internal Medicine, as well as Director of Molecular Immunopharmacology and
Drug Discovery, in the Department of Immunology at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA.
He was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, and graduated with Honors from Anatolia College.
He received all his degrees with Honors from Yale University, and was awarded the Dean’s Research Award and the Winternitz Prize
in Pathology.
He trained in internal medicine at New England Medical Center, which awarded him the Oliver Smith Award “recognizing excellence, compassion and service.” He also received a Certificate in Global Leadership from the Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He has been serving as the Clinical Pharmacologist of the Massachusetts Drug Formulary Commission continuously since 1986. In Greece, he has served on the Supreme Advisory Health Councils of the Ministries of Health and of Social Welfare, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Technology, and he is a member of the International Advisory Committee for the University of Cyprus School of Medicine. He first showed that mast cells, known for causing allergic reactions, are critical for inflammation, especially in the brain, and are involved in a number of inflammatory conditions that worsen by stress such as allergies, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, eczema, fibromyalgia, migraines, mastocytosis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and most recently autism spectrum disorder.
He has also shown that corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), neurotensin and substance P, peptides secreted under stress, act together, and with the cytokine IL-33, to trigger mast cells and microglia to secrete inflammatory molecules. These processes are inhibited by the novel flavonoids, luteolin and tetramethoxyluteolin that he has helped formulate in unique dietary supplements and a skin lotion. He has published over 400 scientific papers (JBC, JACI, JPET, NEJM, Nature, PNAS, Science) and 3 textbooks with 29,887 citations (h-factor 84) and he is in the top 5% of authors most cited in pharmacological and immunological journals. He has received 37 patents and trademarks, including three patents covering the use of luteolin in brain inflammation and autism: US 8,268,365 (09/18/12); US 9,050,275 (06/09/15); US 9,176,146 (11/03/15).
Acting as Advisor, he was instrumental in the development of ibuprofen (Upjohn), Cetirizine (UCB) and Niaspan (Kos). He is also the Scientific Director of Algonot, LLC, as well as President of Theta Biomedical Consulting and Development Co., Inc., of BiomedAdvice, LLC, and of the nonprofit Brain-Gain.org. He is a member of 15 academies and scientific societies. He was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society and the Rare Diseases Hall of Fame. At Tufts, he served on the Curriculum, Students Promotion, Grievance, Faculty Promotion and Tenure, as well as Strategic Planning Committees. He received the Tufts Excellence in Teaching ten times, the Tufts Distinguished Faculty Recognition Award twice, the Tufts Alumni Award for Faculty Excellence, Boston Mayor’s Community Award, and the Dr. George Papanicolau Award, as well as Honorary Doctor of Medicine from Athens University and Honorary Doctor of Sciences from Hellenic-American University. He is “Archon” of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Links
Parsing heterogeneity in ME/CFS to accelerate discovery of tractable disease phenotypes
Associate Professor Mady Hornig
Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Associate Professor Mady Hornig
Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Mady Hornig, MA, MD did her undergraduate studies as a College Scholar at Cornell, received an MA in Psychology from The New School for Social Research and an MD from The Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed her residency in psychiatry at The Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and an NIMH/NRSA Neuropsychopharmacology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research leverages large epidemiologic cohorts, novel bench science and animal model studies to determine how microbial, immune and toxic exposures impact upon the brain across the life course, resulting in disorders such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infection (PANDAS), mood disorders, schizophrenia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and age-related cognitive deficits.
Dr. Hornig is internationally known for her work in the growing research arena exploring the mechanisms of gut-immune-brain axis functioning, seeking clues to both the understanding of the roots of dysfunction as well as uncovering pathways that strengthen individual resiliency. She has a keen interest in how diet, exercise and environmental factors affect each individual’s intestinal bacteria – the so-called gut microbiome – which then influences brain function through alterations in blood-borne molecules.
She has identified naturally-occurring substances that appear to strengthen resistance to certain disease states affecting the brain, and is pursuing these as candidates for prevention and intervention in ME/CFS and autism. She uses immune profiling, metabolomic, proteomic, epigenetic and microbiome approaches to identify prenatal and birth biomarkers for brain disorders in large prospective studies in Scandinavia as well as the US. She is also applying these approaches to uncover markers of disturbed immunity and metabolism correlating with the severe clinical deficits that underlie ME/CFS, work launched with support from the Hutchins Family Foundation/Chronic Fatigue Initiative, the National Institutes of Health and the crowd-funding initiative, The Microbe Discovery Project. Perhaps most exciting is that new ME/CFS subsets that appear to have different triggers and may respond differentially to treatment are now being identified through her work.
Dr. Hornig’s approach is enriched by her unusual combination of decades of experience as a clinical researcher, her acumen in defining novel neuropharmacological and nutritional approaches for brain disorders and her ability to carefully tease out factors that enhance resiliency to disease.
In 2004, Dr. Hornig presented to the Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee and testified twice before congressional subcommittees regarding the role of infections and toxins in autism pathogenesis and has lectured on ME/CFS throughout the world. She has over 120 peer-reviewed publications, has edited several books, and has received many academic awards. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Discover Magazine, Nature Medicine, Science, Wired, the Huffington Post, O Magazine, CBS News, and This Week in Virology.
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References
Research at the Cornell Center for Enervating Neuroimmune Disease
Professor Maureen HansonLiberty Hyde Bailey Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, New York, USA
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell
Maureen Hanson is Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
Previously she was on the faculty of the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard, where she also completed her Ph.D. degree.
While most of her prior research has concerned cell and molecular biology in plant cells, she began a research program on ME/CFS after noting at a
2007 IACFS meeting the paucity of molecular biologists studying the illness.
Her lab was part of the 2012 multicenter study organized by Ian Lipkin's group at Columbia University to assess the actual role of XMRV in ME/CFS.
ME/CFS from a sleep medicine perspective
Professor Markku PartinenProfessor of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland
Professor Partinen is a neurologist and an internationally well-known opinion leader and expert in sleep research and sleep medicine.
He is currently working as Research Director of the Helsinki Sleep Clinic, Vitalmed Research Centre.
He works also at Haartman Institute, University of Helsinki, and at Akademiska Sjukhuset, University of Uppsala.
His expertise covers sleeping, nutrition (what to eat), and other aspects of modern life and well-being.
His current research projects include narcolepsy, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, traffic accidents and daytime sleepiness.
He has published more than 250 articles in peer-reviewed international journals, several books and chapters.
He was recently (Now 2015) elected as the new President of the Finnish Parkinson Association. Professor Partinen is also a member of the European ME Research Group (EMERG) and European ME Clinicians Council (EMECC).
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References
"Year End" Report
Professor James BaraniukProfessor of Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Centre, USA
Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Centre, washington, USA
James N. Baraniuk was born in Alberta, Canada, south of Banff. He earned his honours degree in chemistry and microbiology, medical degree, and
unique bachelor's degree in medicine (cardiology) at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Thereafter, he moved to Akron, OH, USA, for his internship and internal medicine residency at St Thomas Hospital.
After another year of internal medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, he trained with Dr C.E. Buckley, III, in allergy and clinical immunology. He moved to the laboratory of Dr Michael Kaliner at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD, and there began his long-standing collaboration with Dr Kimihiro Ohkubo.
After 2 years studying neuropeptides, he joined Dr Peter Barnes' laboratory at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Brompton Hospital, London, UK. Dr Baraniuk returned to Washington, DC, and Georgetown University, where he is currently Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Medicine.
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References
Revolutionizing biomedical research through technology development
Professor Ronald Davis
Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California, USA
Professor Ronald Davis
Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California, USA
Ronald W. Davis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California.
He is a world leader in the development of biotechnology, especially the development of recombinant DNA and genomic methodologies and their application to biological systems.
At Stanford University, where he is Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center, Dr. Davis focuses on the interface of nano-fabricated solid state devices and biological systems.
He and his research team also develop novel technologies for the genetic, genomic, and molecular analysis of a wide range of model organisms as well as humans.
The team's focus on practical application of these technologies is setting the standard for clinical genomics.
.-
References
Plenary Session
Error processing SSI file
IIMEC12 Pre-Conference Dinner Presentation
David TullerUSA
IIMEC12 Opening IIMEC12
Dr Ian GibsonFormer Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
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References
Keynote Speech - A Centre of Excellence for ME
Professor Ian Charles
Professor Ian Charles has over 30 years’ experience in academic and commercial research.
His academic career has included being a founding member of The Wolfson Institute for BioMedical Research at University College London, one the UK’s first institutes of translational medicine.
He has also worked in the pharmaceutical industry at Glaxo Wellcome, and founded biotech companies in the area of infectious disease, including Arrow Therapeutics,
sold to AstraZeneca in 2007, and Auspherix, a venture capital backed company founded in 2013.
His research interests are in the area of infectious diseases, the microbiome, and its impact on health and wellbeing.
He is particularly interested in harnessing ‘omics technologies to understand how microbes evolve, spread, survive and compete in the food chain to reduce foodborne illness and
to counter antimicrobial resistance.
Prior to becoming the founding Director of the Quadram Institute he was Director of the ithree institute, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
Keynote Speech - NIH Research into ME
Dr Vicky WhittemoreProgram Director in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health in the United States.
Dr. Whittemore is a Program Director in the Synapses, Channels and Neural Circuits Cluster. Her interest is in understanding the underlying mechanisms of the epilepsies including the study of genetic and animal models of the epilepsies.
The major goal is to identify effective treatments for the epilepsies and to develop preventions. Dr. Whittemore received a Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of Minnesota, followed by post-doctoral work at the University of California, Irvine, and a Fogarty Fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
She was on the faculty of the University of Miami School of Medicine in The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis prior to working with several non-profit organizations including the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, Genetic Alliance, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), and the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG).
She also just completed a four-year term on the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council.
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References
Transient receptor potential ion channels in the aetiology and pathomechanism of CFS/ME
Professor Don StainesThe National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University, Australia
Professor Staines has been a public health physician at Gold Coast Population Health Unit.
He has worked in health services management and public health practice in Australia and overseas.
His interests include collaborative health initiatives with other countries as well as cross-disciplinary initiatives within health. Communicable diseases as well as post infectious fatigue syndromes are his main research interests.
A keen supporter of the Griffith University Medical School, he enjoys teaching and other opportunities to promote awareness of public health in the medical curriculum. He is now Co-Director at The National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University in Australia
Integrative Medicine Approach to Treatment of ME
Professor Nancy KlimasDirector, Institute for Neuro Immune Medicine, Nova Southeastern University
Director, Clinical Immunology Research, Miami VAMC
Professor of Medicine, Department of Clinical Immunology, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University
Chair, Department of Clinical Immunology, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Nova Southeastern University
Professor Emerita, University of Miami, School of Medicine
Nancy Klimas, MD, has more than 30 years of professional experience and has achieved international recognition for her research and clinical efforts in multi-symptom disorders, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Gulf War Illness (GWI), Fibromyalgia, and other Neuro Immune Disorders. She is immediate past president of the International Association for CFS and ME (IACFS/ME), a professional organization of clinicians and investigators, and is also a member of the VA Research Advisory Committee for GWI, the NIH P2P CFS Committee, and the Institute of Medicine ME/CFS Review Panel. Dr. Klimas has advised three Secretaries of Health and Human Services, including Kathleen Sabelius, during her repeated service on the Health and Human Services CFS Advisory Committee. Dr. Klimas has been featured on Good Morning America, in USA Today and the New York Times.
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References
Studies of NK cells and cytotoxic T-cells in ME-patients from one Swedish and one Norwegian cohort
Dr Jakob TheorellKarolinska University, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr Jakob Theorell, Stockholm, Sweden
.
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References
Immunoregulation in Patients with ME
Dr Jo CambridgeUCL, London, UK
Dr Jo Cambridge, UCL, UK
.
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References
Professor Simon Carding
Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre in Harrow, Professor Carding “emigrated” to the USA to take up a postdoctoral position at New York University School of Medicine, and then at Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow in the Immunobiology Group at Yale University with Profs Kim Bottomly and Charlie Janeway Jr. While at Yale an interest in gamma-delta (γδ) T cells was acquired working closely with Adrian Hayday on molecular genetics and then with Prof. Peter Doherty to establish their role in (viral) infectious disease.
He left Yale after five years to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he developed a research interest in mucosal and GI-tract immunology, performing studies in germfree mice with Prof John Cebra that helped establish the role of gut microbes in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
After 15 years in the USA, he returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds where he established a new research programme on commensal gut bacteria and Bacteroides genetics leading to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform that is being used for developing new interventions for IBD and for mucosal vaccination.
In 2008 he was recruited by UEA and IFR to develop a gut research programme, taking up the Chair of Mucosal Immunology at UEA-MED and the position of head of the Gut Biology Research Programme at IFR, which later became part of the Gut Health and Food Safety (GHFS) Programme.
GHFS research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute.
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References
Assoc.Professor Mady Hornig
Mady Hornig, MA, MD did her undergraduate studies as a College Scholar at Cornell, received an MA in Psychology from The New School for Social Research and an MD from The Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed her residency in psychiatry at The Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and an NIMH/NRSA Neuropsychopharmacology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research leverages large epidemiologic cohorts, novel bench science and animal model studies to determine how microbial, immune and toxic exposures impact upon the brain across the life course, resulting in disorders such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infection (PANDAS), mood disorders, schizophrenia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and age-related cognitive deficits.
Dr. Hornig is internationally known for her work in the growing research arena exploring the mechanisms of gut-immune-brain axis functioning, seeking clues to both the understanding of the roots of dysfunction as well as uncovering pathways that strengthen individual resiliency. She has a keen interest in how diet, exercise and environmental factors affect each individual’s intestinal bacteria – the so-called gut microbiome – which then influences brain function through alterations in blood-borne molecules.
She has identified naturally-occurring substances that appear to strengthen resistance to certain disease states affecting the brain, and is pursuing these as candidates for prevention and intervention in ME/CFS and autism. She uses immune profiling, metabolomic, proteomic, epigenetic and microbiome approaches to identify prenatal and birth biomarkers for brain disorders in large prospective studies in Scandinavia as well as the US. She is also applying these approaches to uncover markers of disturbed immunity and metabolism correlating with the severe clinical deficits that underlie ME/CFS, work launched with support from the Hutchins Family Foundation/Chronic Fatigue Initiative, the National Institutes of Health and the crowd-funding initiative, The Microbe Discovery Project. Perhaps most exciting is that new ME/CFS subsets that appear to have different triggers and may respond differentially to treatment are now being identified through her work.
Dr. Hornig’s approach is enriched by her unusual combination of decades of experience as a clinical researcher, her acumen in defining novel neuropharmacological and nutritional approaches for brain disorders and her ability to carefully tease out factors that enhance resiliency to disease.
In 2004, Dr. Hornig presented to the Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee and testified twice before congressional subcommittees regarding the role of infections and toxins in autism pathogenesis and has lectured on ME/CFS throughout the world. She has over 120 peer-reviewed publications, has edited several books, and has received many academic awards. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Discover Magazine, Nature Medicine, Science, Wired, the Huffington Post, O Magazine, CBS News, and This Week in Virology.
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References
Professor Olav Mella
Professor. Olav Mella
Professor. Olav Mella of Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway began his investigation of Rituximab’s effects on CFS after treating several Hodgkin’s Lymphoma patients who had long standing cases of CFS prior to developing cancer.
Professor Mella has performed clinical trials to test the benefit of B-cell depletion therapy using Rituximab in ME/CFS patients.
Professor Mella and Dr Fluge have published a paper "Benefit from B-Lymphocyte Depletion Using the Anti-CD20 Antibody Rituximab in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A Double-Blind and Placebo-Controlled Study"
Dr Ingrid Rekeland
Dr Ingrid Rekeland - Medical doctor, Haukeland University Hospital · Department of Oncology and Medical Physics
Professor Warren Tate
Professor Warren Tate
Kjersti Krisner
Opening of IIMEC11
Dr Ian GibsonFormer Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
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References
ME Research Update at National Institutes of Health, USA
Dr Vicky WhittemoreProgram Director in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health in the United States.
Dr. Whittemore is a Program Director in the Synapses, Channels and Neural Circuits Cluster. Her interest is in understanding the underlying mechanisms of the epilepsies including the study of genetic and animal models of the epilepsies.
The major goal is to identify effective treatments for the epilepsies and to develop preventions. Dr. Whittemore received a Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of Minnesota, followed by post-doctoral work at the University of California, Irvine, and a Fogarty Fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
She was on the faculty of the University of Miami School of Medicine in The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis prior to working with several non-profit organizations including the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, Genetic Alliance, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), and the National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics (NCHPEG).
She also just completed a four-year term on the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council.
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References
Professor Olli Polo
Professor Olli Polo
Chief of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Tampere University Hospital, Finland
Professor Carmen Scheibenbogen
Professor Carmen Scheibenbogen
Full professor and Deputy Chair at the Institute of Medical Immunology, Charité
Head of the Outpatient Clinic for Adult Immunodeficiencies at Charité Hospital, Berlin, Germany.
Head of Immunodeficiency Outpatient Clinic | Specialist in hematology, oncology and specialist immunologist
Professor Jo Cambridge
Dr Jo Cambridge, UCL, UK
.
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References
Professor Tom Wileman
Professor Tom Wileman
Professor Don Staines
Professor Staines has been a public health physician at Gold Coast Population Health Unit.
He has worked in health services management and public health practice in Australia and overseas.
His interests include collaborative health initiatives with other countries as well as cross-disciplinary initiatives within health. Communicable diseases as well as post infectious fatigue syndromes are his main research interests.
A keen supporter of the Griffith University Medical School, he enjoys teaching and other opportunities to promote awareness of public health in the medical curriculum. He is now Co-Director at The National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University in Australia
Professor Simon Carding
Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre in Harrow, Professor Carding “emigrated” to the USA to take up a postdoctoral position at New York University School of Medicine, and then at Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow in the Immunobiology Group at Yale University with Profs Kim Bottomly and Charlie Janeway Jr. While at Yale an interest in gamma-delta (γδ) T cells was acquired working closely with Adrian Hayday on molecular genetics and then with Prof. Peter Doherty to establish their role in (viral) infectious disease.
He left Yale after five years to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he developed a research interest in mucosal and GI-tract immunology, performing studies in germfree mice with Prof John Cebra that helped establish the role of gut microbes in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
After 15 years in the USA, he returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds where he established a new research programme on commensal gut bacteria and Bacteroides genetics leading to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform that is being used for developing new interventions for IBD and for mucosal vaccination.
In 2008 he was recruited by UEA and IFR to develop a gut research programme, taking up the Chair of Mucosal Immunology at UEA-MED and the position of head of the Gut Biology Research Programme at IFR, which later became part of the Gut Health and Food Safety (GHFS) Programme.
GHFS research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute.
-
References
Assoc.Professor Mady Hornig
Mady Hornig, MA, MD did her undergraduate studies as a College Scholar at Cornell, received an MA in Psychology from The New School for Social Research and an MD from The Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed her residency in psychiatry at The Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and an NIMH/NRSA Neuropsychopharmacology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research leverages large epidemiologic cohorts, novel bench science and animal model studies to determine how microbial, immune and toxic exposures impact upon the brain across the life course, resulting in disorders such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infection (PANDAS), mood disorders, schizophrenia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and age-related cognitive deficits.
Dr. Hornig is internationally known for her work in the growing research arena exploring the mechanisms of gut-immune-brain axis functioning, seeking clues to both the understanding of the roots of dysfunction as well as uncovering pathways that strengthen individual resiliency. She has a keen interest in how diet, exercise and environmental factors affect each individual’s intestinal bacteria – the so-called gut microbiome – which then influences brain function through alterations in blood-borne molecules.
She has identified naturally-occurring substances that appear to strengthen resistance to certain disease states affecting the brain, and is pursuing these as candidates for prevention and intervention in ME/CFS and autism. She uses immune profiling, metabolomic, proteomic, epigenetic and microbiome approaches to identify prenatal and birth biomarkers for brain disorders in large prospective studies in Scandinavia as well as the US. She is also applying these approaches to uncover markers of disturbed immunity and metabolism correlating with the severe clinical deficits that underlie ME/CFS, work launched with support from the Hutchins Family Foundation/Chronic Fatigue Initiative, the National Institutes of Health and the crowd-funding initiative, The Microbe Discovery Project. Perhaps most exciting is that new ME/CFS subsets that appear to have different triggers and may respond differentially to treatment are now being identified through her work.
Dr. Hornig’s approach is enriched by her unusual combination of decades of experience as a clinical researcher, her acumen in defining novel neuropharmacological and nutritional approaches for brain disorders and her ability to carefully tease out factors that enhance resiliency to disease.
In 2004, Dr. Hornig presented to the Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee and testified twice before congressional subcommittees regarding the role of infections and toxins in autism pathogenesis and has lectured on ME/CFS throughout the world. She has over 120 peer-reviewed publications, has edited several books, and has received many academic awards. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Discover Magazine, Nature Medicine, Science, Wired, the Huffington Post, O Magazine, CBS News, and This Week in Virology.
-
References
Professor Maureen Hanson
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell
Maureen Hanson is Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
Previously she was on the faculty of the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard, where she also completed her Ph.D. degree.
While most of her prior research has concerned cell and molecular biology in plant cells, she began a research program on ME/CFS after noting at a
2007 IACFS meeting the paucity of molecular biologists studying the illness.
Her lab was part of the 2012 multicenter study organized by Ian Lipkin's group at Columbia University to assess the actual role of XMRV in ME/CFS.
Professor Elsia Oltra
Professor Elisa Oltra - Catholic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Elisa Oltra currently works at the Catholic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. Elisa does research in Cancer Research, Cell Biology and Genetics. Researchgate
Professor James Baraniuk
Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Centre, washington, USA
James N. Baraniuk was born in Alberta, Canada, south of Banff. He earned his honours degree in chemistry and microbiology, medical degree, and
unique bachelor's degree in medicine (cardiology) at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Thereafter, he moved to Akron, OH, USA, for his internship and internal medicine residency at St Thomas Hospital.
After another year of internal medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, he trained with Dr C.E. Buckley, III, in allergy and clinical immunology. He moved to the laboratory of Dr Michael Kaliner at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD, and there began his long-standing collaboration with Dr Kimihiro Ohkubo.
After 2 years studying neuropeptides, he joined Dr Peter Barnes' laboratory at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Brompton Hospital, London, UK. Dr Baraniuk returned to Washington, DC, and Georgetown University, where he is currently Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Medicine.
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References
Professor Ron Davis
Ronald W. Davis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine in Stanford, California.
He is a world leader in the development of biotechnology, especially the development of recombinant DNA and genomic methodologies and their application to biological systems.
At Stanford University, where he is Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center, Dr. Davis focuses on the interface of nano-fabricated solid state devices and biological systems.
He and his research team also develop novel technologies for the genetic, genomic, and molecular analysis of a wide range of model organisms as well as humans.
The team's focus on practical application of these technologies is setting the standard for clinical genomics.
.-
References
Mike Shepherd
Arctic Marathon - Fundraising for Invest in ME
Marathons are no mean feat to accomplish - for anyone. An extreme way of raising awareness of ME and much-needed funding for biomedical research into ME was set in motion by Mike Shepherd. Mike ran the North Pole Marathon to raise funds for IiMER. As Mike wrote - ""This is the challenge of a lifetime and it is the result of my daughter having ME since September 2008. I have seen first hand how damaging ME can be to a person's life, their prospects and their family""
Https://investinme.org/Documents/Newsletters/Invest%20in%20ME%20September%20Newsletter%202014m.pdf
Professor Ian Charles
Professor Ian Charles has over 30 years’ experience in academic and commercial research.
His academic career has included being a founding member of The Wolfson Institute for BioMedical Research at University College London, one the UK’s first institutes of translational medicine.
He has also worked in the pharmaceutical industry at Glaxo Wellcome, and founded biotech companies in the area of infectious disease, including Arrow Therapeutics,
sold to AstraZeneca in 2007, and Auspherix, a venture capital backed company founded in 2013.
His research interests are in the area of infectious diseases, the microbiome, and its impact on health and wellbeing.
He is particularly interested in harnessing ‘omics technologies to understand how microbes evolve, spread, survive and compete in the food chain to reduce foodborne illness and
to counter antimicrobial resistance.
Prior to becoming the founding Director of the Quadram Institute he was Director of the ithree institute, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
Professor Jonas Bergquist
Professor Jonas Bergquist
University of Uppsala, Sweden
Dr Amolak Bansal
Dr Amolak Bansal
Consultant Immunologist St Helier University Hospitals, NHS Trust
Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik
Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik NCNED, Australia
Co-director of the National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED) at Australia’s Griffith University. Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik is one of Australia's foremost researchers in the area of neuroimmunology and has been instrumental in establishing the Public Health and Neuroimmunology Unit (PHANU) at Bond University. Much of her work relates specifically to autoimmunity in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers and she is regularly asked to speak to community groups on behalf of Queensland Health and NSW Health. Her research in the area of exercise immunology has also contributed to the body of knowledge relating to the effect of doping in sport and she serves as Sports Medicine Australia's national spokesperson in this area. The vital research conducted by Professor Marshall has attracted more than $1 million in grant funding and she has produced 21 peer-reviewed papers, five book chapters and one provisional patent. In 2008 Dr Marshall was joint leader of the Bond University team responsible for developing the the BioSMART program. The team was awarded a prestigious Australian Teaching and Learning Council Award (formerly known as the Carrick Award) for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning and for the quality of student learning over a sustained period of time.
Professor Simon Carding
Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre in Harrow, Professor Carding “emigrated” to the USA to take up a postdoctoral position at New York University School of Medicine, and then at Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow in the Immunobiology Group at Yale University with Profs Kim Bottomly and Charlie Janeway Jr. While at Yale an interest in gamma-delta (γδ) T cells was acquired working closely with Adrian Hayday on molecular genetics and then with Prof. Peter Doherty to establish their role in (viral) infectious disease.
He left Yale after five years to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he developed a research interest in mucosal and GI-tract immunology, performing studies in germfree mice with Prof John Cebra that helped establish the role of gut microbes in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
After 15 years in the USA, he returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds where he established a new research programme on commensal gut bacteria and Bacteroides genetics leading to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform that is being used for developing new interventions for IBD and for mucosal vaccination.
In 2008 he was recruited by UEA and IFR to develop a gut research programme, taking up the Chair of Mucosal Immunology at UEA-MED and the position of head of the Gut Biology Research Programme at IFR, which later became part of the Gut Health and Food Safety (GHFS) Programme.
GHFS research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute.
-
References
Next Generation
Error processing SSI file
Professor Jo Cambridge
Dr Jo Cambridge, UCL, UK
.
-
References
Professor Neil Harrison
Error processing SSI file
Dr John Chia
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Dr Claire Hutchinson
University of Leicester, UK
Professor Betsy Keller
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Professor Olav Mella
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Plenary Session
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Dr Nigel Speight
Dr Nigel Speight
Dr Nigel Speight was a consultant paediatrician in Durham for over 25 years. He has seen a large number of cases of childhood ME in his own area and has frequently been called on to support cases of where children have been treated poorly by social and healthcare services. He has played a major role in rescuing children from care proceedings and is well qualified to comment on the state of treatment of ME patients. Dr Speight presented at the 2nd Invest in ME Research International ME Conference 2007 in London and gave the pre-conference dinner keynote speech at the 9th Invest in ME Research International ME COnference in 2014. He is considered to be one of the most experienced ME consultants in the UK.
Further Information
Read more of the The General Medical Council - Dr Nigel Speight
- click here
Dr Ian Gibson
Coming Soon
Former Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
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References
Professor Jonathan Edwards
Professor Jonathan Edwards
Emeritus Professor of Connective Tissue Medicine, UCL, UK
Professor Angela Vincent
Professor Angela Vincent
Emeritus Professor of Neuroimmunology, University of Oxford
Professor Vincent is Emeritus Professor of Neuroimmunology at the University of Oxford, and an Emeritus Fellow of Somerville College. She holds an Honorary Consultant position in Immunology and runs the Clinical Neuroimmunology service which is an international referral centre for the measurement of antibodies in neurological diseases.
Together with colleagues she collaborates with neurologists worldwide. She was formerly Head of Department of Clinical Neurology (2005-2008), and is a Past President of the International Society of Neuroimmunology, and an Associate Editor of Brain.
She was a co-applicant and group leader of OXION, the Wellcome Trust-funded Integrative Physiology Initiative "Ion channels and Diseases of Electrically Excitable Cells". She is a member of Faculty of 1000 (Neuroscience, Neurobiology of Disease and Regeneration)
Her major interest is in the role of autoimmunity in neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis and auto-antibody mediated ion channel and receptor disorders. Recent advances have included (a) the discovery that maternal antibodies to different fetal proteins can cause rare neuromuscular disorders, and may be involved in some forms of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders; (b) the definition and characterisation of a new form of myasthenia gravis associated with antibodies to a receptor tyrosine kinase, MuSK, that performs an important maintenance role at the neuromuscular junction; and (c) the recognition that some central nervous system disorders, involving memory loss, seizures, movement disorders, can be caused by antibodies to potassium ion channels and to various receptor proteins.
In these, and several other conditions, new ways are being devised to measure the pathogenic antibodies for better clinical diagnosis, and establishing model in vitro and in vivo systems for investigation of the pathophysiology of the diseases. Her group also works, in collaboration with Profs David Beeson and Nick Willcox, on the genetics of myasthenia and the factors that determine autoimmune responses to the main target, the acetylcholine receptor.
Other Links
Professor Jonas Blomberg
Professor Jonas Blomberg
Emeritus Professor of Clinical Virology, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Sweden
Professor Jonas Blomberg is an MD and PhD, graduating at the University of Gothenburg. Has worked with Lipids at the department of Medical Biochemistry 1965-1972 as a Clinical Virologist in Gothenburg 1972-1979 and as a postDoc at John Stephensons Lab at NCI Frederick on retroviruses 1979-1981. He then worked as a Clinical Virologist in Lund, Sweden 1981-1995 and then as a professor of Clinical Virology in Uppsala 1996- to the present.
His main fields of interest are: Retrovirology, Bioinformatics, Clinical Virology and broadly targeted and multiplex methods for detection of microbial nucleic acid.
He also is interested in evolution and Infection biology.
Professor Blomberg is on the editorial board of Journal of Virology http://jvi.asm.org/site/misc/edboard.xhtml.
Other Links
Assoc.Professor Mady Hornig
Mady Hornig, MA, MD did her undergraduate studies as a College Scholar at Cornell, received an MA in Psychology from The New School for Social Research and an MD from The Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed her residency in psychiatry at The Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and an NIMH/NRSA Neuropsychopharmacology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research leverages large epidemiologic cohorts, novel bench science and animal model studies to determine how microbial, immune and toxic exposures impact upon the brain across the life course, resulting in disorders such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infection (PANDAS), mood disorders, schizophrenia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and age-related cognitive deficits.
Dr. Hornig is internationally known for her work in the growing research arena exploring the mechanisms of gut-immune-brain axis functioning, seeking clues to both the understanding of the roots of dysfunction as well as uncovering pathways that strengthen individual resiliency. She has a keen interest in how diet, exercise and environmental factors affect each individual’s intestinal bacteria – the so-called gut microbiome – which then influences brain function through alterations in blood-borne molecules.
She has identified naturally-occurring substances that appear to strengthen resistance to certain disease states affecting the brain, and is pursuing these as candidates for prevention and intervention in ME/CFS and autism. She uses immune profiling, metabolomic, proteomic, epigenetic and microbiome approaches to identify prenatal and birth biomarkers for brain disorders in large prospective studies in Scandinavia as well as the US. She is also applying these approaches to uncover markers of disturbed immunity and metabolism correlating with the severe clinical deficits that underlie ME/CFS, work launched with support from the Hutchins Family Foundation/Chronic Fatigue Initiative, the National Institutes of Health and the crowd-funding initiative, The Microbe Discovery Project. Perhaps most exciting is that new ME/CFS subsets that appear to have different triggers and may respond differentially to treatment are now being identified through her work.
Dr. Hornig’s approach is enriched by her unusual combination of decades of experience as a clinical researcher, her acumen in defining novel neuropharmacological and nutritional approaches for brain disorders and her ability to carefully tease out factors that enhance resiliency to disease.
In 2004, Dr. Hornig presented to the Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee and testified twice before congressional subcommittees regarding the role of infections and toxins in autism pathogenesis and has lectured on ME/CFS throughout the world. She has over 120 peer-reviewed publications, has edited several books, and has received many academic awards. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Discover Magazine, Nature Medicine, Science, Wired, the Huffington Post, O Magazine, CBS News, and This Week in Virology.
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References
Professor Simon Carding
Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre in Harrow, Professor Carding “emigrated” to the USA to take up a postdoctoral position at New York University School of Medicine, and then at Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow in the Immunobiology Group at Yale University with Profs Kim Bottomly and Charlie Janeway Jr. While at Yale an interest in gamma-delta (γδ) T cells was acquired working closely with Adrian Hayday on molecular genetics and then with Prof. Peter Doherty to establish their role in (viral) infectious disease.
He left Yale after five years to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he developed a research interest in mucosal and GI-tract immunology, performing studies in germfree mice with Prof John Cebra that helped establish the role of gut microbes in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
After 15 years in the USA, he returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds where he established a new research programme on commensal gut bacteria and Bacteroides genetics leading to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform that is being used for developing new interventions for IBD and for mucosal vaccination.
In 2008 he was recruited by UEA and IFR to develop a gut research programme, taking up the Chair of Mucosal Immunology at UEA-MED and the position of head of the Gut Biology Research Programme at IFR, which later became part of the Gut Health and Food Safety (GHFS) Programme.
GHFS research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute.
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References
Professor Carmen Scheibenbogen
Professor Carmen Scheibenbogen
Full professor and Deputy Chair at the Institute of Medical Immunology, Charité
Head of the Outpatient Clinic for Adult Immunodeficiencies at Charité Hospital, Berlin, Germany.
Head of Immunodeficiency Outpatient Clinic | Specialist in hematology, oncology and specialist immunologist
Professor James Baraniuk
Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Centre, washington, USA
James N. Baraniuk was born in Alberta, Canada, south of Banff. He earned his honours degree in chemistry and microbiology, medical degree, and
unique bachelor's degree in medicine (cardiology) at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Thereafter, he moved to Akron, OH, USA, for his internship and internal medicine residency at St Thomas Hospital.
After another year of internal medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, he trained with Dr C.E. Buckley, III, in allergy and clinical immunology. He moved to the laboratory of Dr Michael Kaliner at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD, and there began his long-standing collaboration with Dr Kimihiro Ohkubo.
After 2 years studying neuropeptides, he joined Dr Peter Barnes' laboratory at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Brompton Hospital, London, UK. Dr Baraniuk returned to Washington, DC, and Georgetown University, where he is currently Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Medicine.
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References
Professor Julia Newton
Dr Julia Newton - Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, UK
Dr Julia Newton is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University. Dr Newton has been working on autonomic dysfunction in ME/CFS patients and will be presenting results of her continuing research.
Professor Maureen Hanson
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell
Maureen Hanson is Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
Previously she was on the faculty of the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard, where she also completed her Ph.D. degree.
While most of her prior research has concerned cell and molecular biology in plant cells, she began a research program on ME/CFS after noting at a
2007 IACFS meeting the paucity of molecular biologists studying the illness.
Her lab was part of the 2012 multicenter study organized by Ian Lipkin's group at Columbia University to assess the actual role of XMRV in ME/CFS.
Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik
Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik NCNED, Australia
Co-director of the National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED) at Australia’s Griffith University. Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik is one of Australia's foremost researchers in the area of neuroimmunology and has been instrumental in establishing the Public Health and Neuroimmunology Unit (PHANU) at Bond University. Much of her work relates specifically to autoimmunity in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers and she is regularly asked to speak to community groups on behalf of Queensland Health and NSW Health. Her research in the area of exercise immunology has also contributed to the body of knowledge relating to the effect of doping in sport and she serves as Sports Medicine Australia's national spokesperson in this area. The vital research conducted by Professor Marshall has attracted more than $1 million in grant funding and she has produced 21 peer-reviewed papers, five book chapters and one provisional patent. In 2008 Dr Marshall was joint leader of the Bond University team responsible for developing the the BioSMART program. The team was awarded a prestigious Australian Teaching and Learning Council Award (formerly known as the Carrick Award) for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning and for the quality of student learning over a sustained period of time.
Dr Andreas Kogelnik
Dr Andreas Kogelnik
Dr Andreas Kogelnik is the Founding Director of the Open Medicine Institute, a collaborative, community-based translational research institute dedicated to personalized medicine with a human touch while using the latest advances in medicine, informatics, genomics, and biotechnology.
The Institute works closely with the Open Medicine Clinic and other clinics to conduct research and apply new knowledge back into clinical practice.
Dr. Kogelnik received his M.D. from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta and his Ph.D. in bioengineering/bioinformatics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Subsequently, he completed is residency in Internal Medicine and a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Stanford University and its affiliated hospitals. Following his clinical training, he remained at Stanford with NIH funding to engage in post-doctoral research in microbiology, immunology and bioinformatics with Dr. Ellen Jo Baron and Dr. Stanley Falkow, where he explored host-response profiles in severely ill patients.
Together with Dr. José Montoya, he was instrumental in the conception, design, and execution of the EVOLVE study - a placebo-controlled, double-blind study of a subset of chronic fatigue syndrome patients with evidence of viral infection.
Dr. Kogelnik worked with Dr. Atul Butte in translational informatics to determine patterns that indicated a high risk for adverse events in paediatric patients at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital.
H
e is the Medical Director of the Open Medicine Clinic - a community-based research clinic focussed on chronic infectious diseases, neuroimmune disease, and immunology. Dr. Kogelnik has published numerous scientific papers and book chapters, is an Editor of Computers in Medicine and Biology, and is a Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford University. With the Open Medicine Institute, he has led the formation of CFS and Lyme Registries and Biobanks as well as creating an infrastructure for providers to collect better data and implement clinical trials across a network of sites.
Dr Amolak Bansal
Dr Amolak Bansal
Consultant Immunologist St Helier University Hospitals, NHS Trust
Dr Julian Blanco
pending
Professor Jonathan Edwards
Emeritus Professor of Connective Tissue Medicine, UCL, UK
IIMEC9 Plenary Session
Coming Soon
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Linda Tannenbaum
Opening of IIMEC8
Dr Ian GibsonFormer Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
-
References
Dr Dan Peterson
Dr Daniel L. Peterson, Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, M.D., is an internist in Incline Village, Nevada and recognized medical expert on CFS/ME. Dr. Peterson is founder of Simmaron Research, and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Peterson has devoted 25 years of his clinical career to diagnosing and caring for patients with CFS/ME and related neuroimmune disorders, and collaborating with researchers to better understand the illness. Dr. Peterson’s repository of more than 1,000 patient biological samples and records is a rich resource for research studies. His experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
With over 25 years of medical practice, Dr Daniel L. Peterson has become a sought-after internist for diagnosing difficult and complex medical cases.
When several patients in Incline Village became ill with symptoms that resembled persistent mononucleosis, Daniel Peterson was one of the first physicians to recognize an outbreak of what is known as ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). He became a pioneering physician and researcher in understanding the biological characteristics and methods for diagnosing, managing and treating ME/CFS. He has also performed major studies of Ampligen as a treatment for ME/CFS, and studying the possible role of human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) in CFS patients.
Dr. Peterson's experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
Other Links
Dr Andreas Kogelnik
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Rakib Rayhan
Rakib Rayhan
Professor Greg Towers
Professor Greg Towers
Professor of Molecular Virology, UCL, UK
Associate Professor Mady Hornig
Mady Hornig, MA, MD did her undergraduate studies as a College Scholar at Cornell, received an MA in Psychology from The New School for Social Research and an MD from The Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed her residency in psychiatry at The Medical Center Hospital of Vermont and an NIMH/NRSA Neuropsychopharmacology Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research leverages large epidemiologic cohorts, novel bench science and animal model studies to determine how microbial, immune and toxic exposures impact upon the brain across the life course, resulting in disorders such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infection (PANDAS), mood disorders, schizophrenia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and age-related cognitive deficits.
Dr. Hornig is internationally known for her work in the growing research arena exploring the mechanisms of gut-immune-brain axis functioning, seeking clues to both the understanding of the roots of dysfunction as well as uncovering pathways that strengthen individual resiliency. She has a keen interest in how diet, exercise and environmental factors affect each individual’s intestinal bacteria – the so-called gut microbiome – which then influences brain function through alterations in blood-borne molecules.
She has identified naturally-occurring substances that appear to strengthen resistance to certain disease states affecting the brain, and is pursuing these as candidates for prevention and intervention in ME/CFS and autism. She uses immune profiling, metabolomic, proteomic, epigenetic and microbiome approaches to identify prenatal and birth biomarkers for brain disorders in large prospective studies in Scandinavia as well as the US. She is also applying these approaches to uncover markers of disturbed immunity and metabolism correlating with the severe clinical deficits that underlie ME/CFS, work launched with support from the Hutchins Family Foundation/Chronic Fatigue Initiative, the National Institutes of Health and the crowd-funding initiative, The Microbe Discovery Project. Perhaps most exciting is that new ME/CFS subsets that appear to have different triggers and may respond differentially to treatment are now being identified through her work.
Dr. Hornig’s approach is enriched by her unusual combination of decades of experience as a clinical researcher, her acumen in defining novel neuropharmacological and nutritional approaches for brain disorders and her ability to carefully tease out factors that enhance resiliency to disease.
In 2004, Dr. Hornig presented to the Institute of Medicine Immunization Safety Review Committee and testified twice before congressional subcommittees regarding the role of infections and toxins in autism pathogenesis and has lectured on ME/CFS throughout the world. She has over 120 peer-reviewed publications, has edited several books, and has received many academic awards. Her work has been featured by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Discover Magazine, Nature Medicine, Science, Wired, the Huffington Post, O Magazine, CBS News, and This Week in Virology.
-
References
Dr Clare Gerada
Dr Clare Gerada
Professor Don Staines
Professor Staines has been a public health physician at Gold Coast Population Health Unit.
He has worked in health services management and public health practice in Australia and overseas.
His interests include collaborative health initiatives with other countries as well as cross-disciplinary initiatives within health. Communicable diseases as well as post infectious fatigue syndromes are his main research interests.
A keen supporter of the Griffith University Medical School, he enjoys teaching and other opportunities to promote awareness of public health in the medical curriculum. He is now Co-Director at The National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University in Australia
Professor Simon Carding
Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre in Harrow, Professor Carding “emigrated” to the USA to take up a postdoctoral position at New York University School of Medicine, and then at Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow in the Immunobiology Group at Yale University with Profs Kim Bottomly and Charlie Janeway Jr. While at Yale an interest in gamma-delta (γδ) T cells was acquired working closely with Adrian Hayday on molecular genetics and then with Prof. Peter Doherty to establish their role in (viral) infectious disease.
He left Yale after five years to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he developed a research interest in mucosal and GI-tract immunology, performing studies in germfree mice with Prof John Cebra that helped establish the role of gut microbes in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
After 15 years in the USA, he returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds where he established a new research programme on commensal gut bacteria and Bacteroides genetics leading to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform that is being used for developing new interventions for IBD and for mucosal vaccination.
In 2008 he was recruited by UEA and IFR to develop a gut research programme, taking up the Chair of Mucosal Immunology at UEA-MED and the position of head of the Gut Biology Research Programme at IFR, which later became part of the Gut Health and Food Safety (GHFS) Programme.
GHFS research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute.
-
References
Professor Olav Mella
Professor. Olav Mella
Professor. Olav Mella of Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway began his investigation of Rituximab’s effects on CFS after treating several Hodgkin’s Lymphoma patients who had long standing cases of CFS prior to developing cancer.
Professor Mella has performed clinical trials to test the benefit of B-cell depletion therapy using Rituximab in ME/CFS patients.
Professor Mella and Dr Fluge have published a paper "Benefit from B-Lymphocyte Depletion Using the Anti-CD20 Antibody Rituximab in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A Double-Blind and Placebo-Controlled Study"
Dr Oystein Fluge
Øystein Fluge received medical degree in 1988 at the University of Bergen, and is a specialist in oncology since 2004.
He has worked as a Research Fellow with support from the Norwegian Cancer Society and is now chief physician at the Cancer Department, Haukeland University Hospital.
Doctoral work emanates from the Surgical Institute and Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen.
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References
Dr Amolak Bansal
Dr Amolak Bansal
Consultant Immunologist St Helier University Hospitals, NHS Trust
Professor Carmen Scheibenbogen
Professor Carmen Scheibenbogen
Full professor and Deputy Chair at the Institute of Medical Immunology, Charité
Head of the Outpatient Clinic for Adult Immunodeficiencies at Charité Hospital, Berlin, Germany.
Head of Immunodeficiency Outpatient Clinic | Specialist in hematology, oncology and specialist immunologist
Plenary Session
At the end of the conference more questions were taken from the audience with Dr Ian Gibson mediating. .
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
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IiMER Links
IIMEC7 Pre-Conference Dinner Presentation
Jørgen JelstadNorway
New Directions in ME/CFS Research
Professor Don StainesThe National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University, Australia
Professor Staines has been a public health physician at Gold Coast Population Health Unit.
He has worked in health services management and public health practice in Australia and overseas.
His interests include collaborative health initiatives with other countries as well as cross-disciplinary initiatives within health. Communicable diseases as well as post infectious fatigue syndromes are his main research interests.
A keen supporter of the Griffith University Medical School, he enjoys teaching and other opportunities to promote awareness of public health in the medical curriculum. He is now Co-Director at The National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University in Australia
Transient receptor potential ion channels in the aetiology and pathomechanism of CFS/ME
Professor Sonya Marshall-GradisnikThe National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED), Griffiths University, Australia
Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik NCNED, Australia
Co-director of the National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Diseases (NCNED) at Australia’s Griffith University. Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik is one of Australia's foremost researchers in the area of neuroimmunology and has been instrumental in establishing the Public Health and Neuroimmunology Unit (PHANU) at Bond University. Much of her work relates specifically to autoimmunity in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers and she is regularly asked to speak to community groups on behalf of Queensland Health and NSW Health. Her research in the area of exercise immunology has also contributed to the body of knowledge relating to the effect of doping in sport and she serves as Sports Medicine Australia's national spokesperson in this area. The vital research conducted by Professor Marshall has attracted more than $1 million in grant funding and she has produced 21 peer-reviewed papers, five book chapters and one provisional patent. In 2008 Dr Marshall was joint leader of the Bond University team responsible for developing the the BioSMART program. The team was awarded a prestigious Australian Teaching and Learning Council Award (formerly known as the Carrick Award) for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning and for the quality of student learning over a sustained period of time.
Professor Hugh Perry
Southampton University, UKProfessor Hugh Perry
Professor Perry and his team study Inflammation in the CNS and its contribution to Neurological Disease. The results of this research may help in the development of therapies to treat acute and chronic neurodegenerative conditions, which at present are largely untreated.
Inflammation biology in the brain is a complex subject and requires expertise in many different areas. The CNS Inflammation Group have collaborations with academic laboratories across the University of Southampton, the UK, as well as with laboratories across Europe.
Professor Maria Fitzgerald
Professor Maria FitzgeraldUCL, UK
Professor Maria Fitzgerald
Professor of Developmental Neurobiology Dept Anatomy & Developmental Biology, University College London. Maria Fitzgerald graduated in Physiological Sciences at Oxford University and studied for a PhD in Physiology at UCL. She was awarded a postdoctoral MRC training fellowship to work with Professor Patrick Wall in the Cerebral Functions Group at UCL and remained in that group as a postdoctoral fellow until starting her own research group in the Anatomy & Developmental Biology Dept at UCL. She became a Professor of Developmental Neurobiology in 1995 and was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2000. Maria is Scientific Director of the Paediatric Pain Research Centre at UCL www.pprg.ucl.ac.uk, and is a member of a number of research boards including the Medical Research Council Neurosciences and Mental Health Board, the Scientific Board of the Migraine Trust and the French National Research Agency (ANR). She is an Editorial Board member of ‘Pain’ and of ‘Pain Research and Clinical Management. Maria has published over 130 research papers and reviews in the area of pain neurobiology (taken from UCL site http://www.ucl.ac.uk/npp/research/mfi).
Transient receptor potential ion channels in the aetiology and pathomechanism of CFS/ME
Dr Mario DelgadoInstitute of Parasitology and Biomedicine, CSIC, Granada, Spain
Dr Mario Delgado, Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine, CSIC, Granada, Spain
Mario Delgado, PhD, received his PhD in biological sciences in 1996 from the Complutense University Madrid, where he obtained a position as associate professor. In 2003, he moved to the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine in Granada, Spain, where he is full professor and director of the institute. As a neuroimmunologist, he is focused on understanding the bidirectional communication between immune and neuroendocrine systems. A primary objective of his research is to identify endogenous anti-inflammatory factors, mainly neuropeptides and hormones, with the aim of designing new therapeutic strategies for immune and neurodegenerative disorders. Moreover, he discovered the immunomodulatory actions of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells.
Dr. Delgado is the author of 160 publications in the field of neuroimmunology (cited more than 7000 times, personal H-index of 52, cumulative impact factor around 800).
He has licensed three patents for the treatment of inflammatory disorders with neuropeptide- and stem cell-based therapies, which were translated in many clinical trials.
[source: https://www.michaeljfox.org/researcher/mario-delgado-phd]
As a neuroimmunologist, his main research focus has been to understand the bidirectional communication that exists between immune and neuroendocrine systems. A primary objective of the Delgado laboratory is to identify endogenous anti-inflammatory factors, mainly neuropeptides and hormones, that are produced under inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, with the aim of identifying therapeutic agents for immune disorders where tolerance is compromised.
Other Links
Professor James Baraniuk
Georgetown University, USAProfessor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Centre, washington, USA
James N. Baraniuk was born in Alberta, Canada, south of Banff. He earned his honours degree in chemistry and microbiology, medical degree, and
unique bachelor's degree in medicine (cardiology) at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Thereafter, he moved to Akron, OH, USA, for his internship and internal medicine residency at St Thomas Hospital.
After another year of internal medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, he trained with Dr C.E. Buckley, III, in allergy and clinical immunology. He moved to the laboratory of Dr Michael Kaliner at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD, and there began his long-standing collaboration with Dr Kimihiro Ohkubo.
After 2 years studying neuropeptides, he joined Dr Peter Barnes' laboratory at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Brompton Hospital, London, UK. Dr Baraniuk returned to Washington, DC, and Georgetown University, where he is currently Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Medicine.
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References
Professor Olav Mella
Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, NorwayProfessor. Olav Mella
Professor. Olav Mella of Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway began his investigation of Rituximab’s effects on CFS after treating several Hodgkin’s Lymphoma patients who had long standing cases of CFS prior to developing cancer.
Professor Mella has performed clinical trials to test the benefit of B-cell depletion therapy using Rituximab in ME/CFS patients.
Professor Mella and Dr Fluge have published a paper "Benefit from B-Lymphocyte Depletion Using the Anti-CD20 Antibody Rituximab in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A Double-Blind and Placebo-Controlled Study"
Dr Øystein Fluge
Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, NorwayØystein Fluge received medical degree in 1988 at the University of Bergen, and is a specialist in oncology since 2004.
He has worked as a Research Fellow with support from the Norwegian Cancer Society and is now chief physician at the Cancer Department, Haukeland University Hospital.
Doctoral work emanates from the Surgical Institute and Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen.
.-
References
Dr Daniel Peterson
Simmaron Research, USADr Daniel L. Peterson, Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, M.D., is an internist in Incline Village, Nevada and recognized medical expert on CFS/ME. Dr. Peterson is founder of Simmaron Research, and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Peterson has devoted 25 years of his clinical career to diagnosing and caring for patients with CFS/ME and related neuroimmune disorders, and collaborating with researchers to better understand the illness. Dr. Peterson’s repository of more than 1,000 patient biological samples and records is a rich resource for research studies. His experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
With over 25 years of medical practice, Dr Daniel L. Peterson has become a sought-after internist for diagnosing difficult and complex medical cases.
When several patients in Incline Village became ill with symptoms that resembled persistent mononucleosis, Daniel Peterson was one of the first physicians to recognize an outbreak of what is known as ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). He became a pioneering physician and researcher in understanding the biological characteristics and methods for diagnosing, managing and treating ME/CFS. He has also performed major studies of Ampligen as a treatment for ME/CFS, and studying the possible role of human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) in CFS patients.
Dr. Peterson's experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
Other Links
Professor Indre Bileviciute Ljungar
Karolinska Institute, SwedenProfessor Indre Bileviciute Ljungar
Professor Karolinska Institute Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr Andreas Kogelnik
Open MedicineDr Andreas Kogelnik
Dr Andreas Kogelnik is the Founding Director of the Open Medicine Institute, a collaborative, community-based translational research institute dedicated to personalized medicine with a human touch while using the latest advances in medicine, informatics, genomics, and biotechnology.
The Institute works closely with the Open Medicine Clinic and other clinics to conduct research and apply new knowledge back into clinical practice.
Dr. Kogelnik received his M.D. from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta and his Ph.D. in bioengineering/bioinformatics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Subsequently, he completed is residency in Internal Medicine and a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Stanford University and its affiliated hospitals. Following his clinical training, he remained at Stanford with NIH funding to engage in post-doctoral research in microbiology, immunology and bioinformatics with Dr. Ellen Jo Baron and Dr. Stanley Falkow, where he explored host-response profiles in severely ill patients.
Together with Dr. José Montoya, he was instrumental in the conception, design, and execution of the EVOLVE study - a placebo-controlled, double-blind study of a subset of chronic fatigue syndrome patients with evidence of viral infection.
Dr. Kogelnik worked with Dr. Atul Butte in translational informatics to determine patterns that indicated a high risk for adverse events in paediatric patients at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital.
H
e is the Medical Director of the Open Medicine Clinic - a community-based research clinic focussed on chronic infectious diseases, neuroimmune disease, and immunology. Dr. Kogelnik has published numerous scientific papers and book chapters, is an Editor of Computers in Medicine and Biology, and is a Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford University. With the Open Medicine Institute, he has led the formation of CFS and Lyme Registries and Biobanks as well as creating an infrastructure for providers to collect better data and implement clinical trials across a network of sites.
Plenary Session
At the end of the conference more questions were taken from the audience with Dr Ian Gibson mediating. .
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
-
IiMER Links
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Annette Whittemore
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Founder and President of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA.
The Institute is located on the medical campus of the University of Nevada.
Its mission is to serve those with complex neuro-immune diseases such as ME/CFS,
viral induced central nervous system dysfunction and fibromyalgia. Annette Whittemore
graduated in Elementary and Special Education at the University of Nevada and taught
children with neuro-cognitive deficits, such as those found in autism, ADD, and learning
disabilities. As the president and director of the current operations at the Institute
Annette supports the basic and clinical research program, and actively recruits physicians
and other support personnel for the Institute.
David Bell
Lyndonville NY,USA25 Year Follow-up of ME Patients
Dr David Bell, Lyndonville NY, USA
Dr. Andreas Kogelnik
Dr Andreas Kogelnik
Dr Andreas Kogelnik is the Founding Director of the Open Medicine Institute, a collaborative, community-based translational research institute dedicated to personalized medicine with a human touch while using the latest advances in medicine, informatics, genomics, and biotechnology.
The Institute works closely with the Open Medicine Clinic and other clinics to conduct research and apply new knowledge back into clinical practice.
Dr. Kogelnik received his M.D. from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta and his Ph.D. in bioengineering/bioinformatics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Subsequently, he completed is residency in Internal Medicine and a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Stanford University and its affiliated hospitals. Following his clinical training, he remained at Stanford with NIH funding to engage in post-doctoral research in microbiology, immunology and bioinformatics with Dr. Ellen Jo Baron and Dr. Stanley Falkow, where he explored host-response profiles in severely ill patients.
Together with Dr. José Montoya, he was instrumental in the conception, design, and execution of the EVOLVE study - a placebo-controlled, double-blind study of a subset of chronic fatigue syndrome patients with evidence of viral infection.
Dr. Kogelnik worked with Dr. Atul Butte in translational informatics to determine patterns that indicated a high risk for adverse events in paediatric patients at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital.
H
e is the Medical Director of the Open Medicine Clinic - a community-based research clinic focussed on chronic infectious diseases, neuroimmune disease, and immunology. Dr. Kogelnik has published numerous scientific papers and book chapters, is an Editor of Computers in Medicine and Biology, and is a Consulting Assistant Professor at Stanford University. With the Open Medicine Institute, he has led the formation of CFS and Lyme Registries and Biobanks as well as creating an infrastructure for providers to collect better data and implement clinical trials across a network of sites.
Dr John Chia
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Professor Geoffrey Burnstock
Professor Geoffrey Burnstock, Head of Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London and Convenor of the Centre of Neuroscience, UK
Professor Geoffrey Burnstock studied theology, maths and physics at King's College London, before completing a PhD at King's and University College London under the supervision of the neurophysiologist, JZ Young. Between 1959 and 1975, Professor Burnstock worked at the University of Melbourne, beginning with a senior lectureship in zoology. Most of his major research has been on the autonomic nervous system, notably autonomic neurotransmission and he is best known for his discovery that ATP is a transmitter in NANC (non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic) nerves and also for the discovery and definition of P2 purinergic receptors, their signaling pathways and functional relevance.
Professor Burnstock's work in this area has had an impact on the understanding of pain mechanisms, incontinence, embryological development, bone formation and resorption, and on skin, prostate and bladder cancer. Professor Burnstock returned to London in 1975, becoming Head of Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London and Convenor of the Centre of Neuroscience.
He has served as editor-in-chief of the journals Autonomic Neuroscience and Purinergic Signalling and has been on the editorial boards of many other journals. He has been elected to the Australian Academy of Science, the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences, and was awarded the Royal Society Gold Medal in2000. He was President of the International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience (ISAN), and was first in the Institute of Scientific Information list of most cited scientists in Pharmacology and Toxicology. (from The UCL Centre for the History of MEdicine)
Proteomics of CFS
Professor James BaraniukProfessor of Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Centre, USA
Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Centre, washington, USA
James N. Baraniuk was born in Alberta, Canada, south of Banff. He earned his honours degree in chemistry and microbiology, medical degree, and
unique bachelor's degree in medicine (cardiology) at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Thereafter, he moved to Akron, OH, USA, for his internship and internal medicine residency at St Thomas Hospital.
After another year of internal medicine residency at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, he trained with Dr C.E. Buckley, III, in allergy and clinical immunology. He moved to the laboratory of Dr Michael Kaliner at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD, and there began his long-standing collaboration with Dr Kimihiro Ohkubo.
After 2 years studying neuropeptides, he joined Dr Peter Barnes' laboratory at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Brompton Hospital, London, UK. Dr Baraniuk returned to Washington, DC, and Georgetown University, where he is currently Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Medicine.
-
References
Professor Simon Carding
Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre in Harrow, Professor Carding “emigrated” to the USA to take up a postdoctoral position at New York University School of Medicine, and then at Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow in the Immunobiology Group at Yale University with Profs Kim Bottomly and Charlie Janeway Jr. While at Yale an interest in gamma-delta (γδ) T cells was acquired working closely with Adrian Hayday on molecular genetics and then with Prof. Peter Doherty to establish their role in (viral) infectious disease.
He left Yale after five years to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he developed a research interest in mucosal and GI-tract immunology, performing studies in germfree mice with Prof John Cebra that helped establish the role of gut microbes in the aetiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
After 15 years in the USA, he returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds where he established a new research programme on commensal gut bacteria and Bacteroides genetics leading to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform that is being used for developing new interventions for IBD and for mucosal vaccination.
In 2008 he was recruited by UEA and IFR to develop a gut research programme, taking up the Chair of Mucosal Immunology at UEA-MED and the position of head of the Gut Biology Research Programme at IFR, which later became part of the Gut Health and Food Safety (GHFS) Programme.
GHFS research covers a broad area of gut biology including epithelial cell physiology, mucus and glycobiology, mucosal immunology, commensal microbiology, foodborne bacterial pathogens, and mathematical modelling and bioinformatics. The success of this programme has led to the establishment of the Gut Microbes and Health research programme that is integral to the research agenda of The Quadram Institute.
-
References
Professor Olav Mella/Dr Oystein Fluge
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Oystein Fluge received medical degree in 1988 at the University of Bergen, and is a specialist in oncology since 2004.
He has worked as a Research Fellow with support from the Norwegian Cancer Society and is now chief physician at the Cancer Department, Haukeland University Hospital.
Doctoral work emanates from the Surgical Institute and Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen.
.-
References
Professor Kenny de Meirleir
Professor De Meirleir is a professor of Physiology and Internal Medicine at Free University of Brussels in Belgium. He is co-editor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Biological Approach, co-editor of the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and reviewer for more than 10 other medical journals. Dr. De Meirleir was one of four international experts on the panel that developed the Canadian Consensus Document for ME/CFS. He assesses/treats 3,000 to 4,000 ME/CFS patients annually. Professor Kenny L. De Meirleir, MD received his medical degree at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Magna cum laude. His research activities in Chronic Fatigue date back to 1990. His other research activities in exercise physiology, metabolism and endocrinology have led to the Solvay Prize and the NATO research award. He is director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as well as consultant in the Division of Cardiology and director of the cardiac rehabilitation program at Vrijie Universiteit Brussel.
Dr Judy Mikovits
Dr Judy Mikovits, Research Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from George Washington University. She is Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Nevada CFS centre for Neuro-Immune disorders and has co-authored over 40 peer reviewed publications that address fundamental issues of viral pathogenesis, hematopoiesis and cytokine biology.
Dr Wilfried Bieger
Dr Wilfried Bieger
Plenary Session
At the end of the conference more questions were taken from the audience with Professor Malcolm Hooper mediating. .
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
-
IiMER Links
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Professor Leonard Jason
Dr Leonard Jason, DePaul University, Chicago
Dr Leonard Jason has been among the most prolific of all ME/CFS researchers. For more than a decade, Dr Jason and his team at DePaul University’s Centre for Community Research in Chicago have worked to define the scope and impact of ME/CFS worldwide. Dr Jason is Vice President of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (now the IACFS/ME) and has been a key driver of CFS research since 1991, and is uniquely positioned to support collaboration between CFS researchers, patients, and government decision makers. His studies have shown that the direct and indirect costs of ME/CFS amount to $20 billion in the U.S. each year, and more than 1 million people suffer from ME/CFS as opposed to the estimated 20,000 people originally reported by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Professor Nora Chapman
Professor Nora Chapman, University of Nebraska, USA
Professor of Pathology and Associate Professor, University of Nebraska
Dr. Champan's primary research focus is on group B coxsackieviruses and their receptor(s). Professor Nora Chapman is a Research Scientist at the University of Nebraska Enterovirus Research Laboratory and Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre.
Professor Chapman studies persistent coxsackie infections in murine models of chronic myocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy.
She and her associates have demonstrated that selection of defective enterovirus in heart and other tissues leads to persistent infections despite active antiviral immune responses.
Professor Chapman is presently studying the mode of selection of these viruses and the effects of replication of these viruses upon infected cell function.
Professor Chapman and her associates at the University of Nebraska are further investigating Dr. John Chia’s work in regards to enterovirus in the gut biopsies.
(From the Enterovirus Foundation site - click here)
Dr John Chia
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Dr Paul Cheney MD, PhD
Medical Director of the Cheney Clinic in Asheville, North Carolina, USA
For more than 25 years, Dr. Cheney has been a pioneering clinical researcher in the field of ME/CFS and has been an internationally recognized authority on the subject of ME/CFS.
He has published numerous articles and lectured around the world on ME/CFS. Dr. Cheney has been interested in many aspects of ME/CFS, and is author or co-author of numerous publications and scientific presentations in a range of fields relevant to the illness.
While practicing in Lake Tahoe in 1984-1987, Dr. Cheney, along with Dr. Dan Peterson, helped lead a research effort with the NIH, the CDC and Harvard University School of Medicine studying a localized outbreak of what would eventually be known as ME/CFS.
He was a founding Director of the American Association of CFS (now the International Association for CFS/ME).
Dr. Cheney holds a PhD in Physics from Duke University in Durham, NC and is a graduate (MD) of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA where he also completed his internal medicine residency. He is a board certified internist.
More recently, Dr. Cheney has been engaged in investigating the cardiac function of CFS patients, using Impedance Cardiography and Doppler Echocardiography. According to his paper presented at the 2007 IACFS/ME conference, "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients exhibit evidence of diastolic dysfunction at a level well above that reported for control populations of the same age. Energy dependent diastolic dysfunction would appear to be a hallmark of CFS and supports the hypothesis that CFS is a syndrome of cellular energy deficiency."
Since 1990, Dr. Cheney has headed the Cheney Clinic, presently located in Asheville, NC. The Cheney Clinic specializes in evaluating CFS patients and has expertise in diagnosis, disability support for and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome. No single clinic has drawn as many CFS patients (currently over 5,000) from as many states (48) and foreign countries (22) as has the Cheney Clinic.
The Cheney Clinic has evaluated over 8,000 patients from 48 states and 24 foreign countries and participated in an FDA-approved multi-center , a biological response pharmaceutical drug trial using Ampligen, a biological response modifier.
For more than 25 years, Dr. Cheney has been a pioneering clinical researcher in the field of ME/CFS and has been an internationally recognized authority on the subject of ME/CFS.
He has published numerous articles and lectured around the world on ME/CFS. Dr. Cheney has been interested in many aspects of ME/CFS, and is author or co-author of numerous publications and scientific presentations in a range of fields relevant to the illness.
While practicing in Lake Tahoe in 1984-1987, Dr. Cheney, along with Dr. Dan Peterson, helped lead a research effort with the NIH, the CDC and Harvard University School of Medicine studying a localized outbreak of what would eventually be known as ME/CFS.
He was a founding Director of the American Association of CFS (now the International Association for CFS/ME).
Dr. Cheney holds a PhD in Physics from Duke University in Durham, NC and is a graduate (MD) of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA where he also completed his internal medicine residency. He is a board certified internist.
More recently, Dr. Cheney has been engaged in investigating the cardiac function of CFS patients, using Impedance Cardiography and Doppler Echocardiography. According to his paper presented at the 2007 IACFS/ME conference, "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients exhibit evidence of diastolic dysfunction at a level well above that reported for control populations of the same age. Energy dependent diastolic dysfunction would appear to be a hallmark of CFS and supports the hypothesis that CFS is a syndrome of cellular energy deficiency."
Since 1990, Dr. Cheney has headed the Cheney Clinic, presently located in Asheville, NC. The Cheney Clinic specializes in evaluating CFS patients and has expertise in diagnosis, disability support for and treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome. No single clinic has drawn as many CFS patients (currently over 5,000) from as many states (48) and foreign countries (22) as has the Cheney Clinic.
The Cheney Clinic has evaluated over 8,000 patients from 48 states and 24 foreign countries and participated in an FDA-approved multi-center , a biological response pharmaceutical drug trial using Ampligen, a biological response modifier.
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Dr Nancy Klimas
Nancy Klimas, MD, has more than 30 years of professional experience and has achieved international recognition for her research and clinical efforts in multi-symptom disorders, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Gulf War Illness (GWI), Fibromyalgia, and other Neuro Immune Disorders. She is immediate past president of the International Association for CFS and ME (IACFS/ME), a professional organization of clinicians and investigators, and is also a member of the VA Research Advisory Committee for GWI, the NIH P2P CFS Committee, and the Institute of Medicine ME/CFS Review Panel. Dr. Klimas has advised three Secretaries of Health and Human Services, including Kathleen Sabelius, during her repeated service on the Health and Human Services CFS Advisory Committee. Dr. Klimas has been featured on Good Morning America, in USA Today and the New York Times.
.-
References
Professor Brigitte Huber
Professor Brigitte Huber, Tufts University, USA
Brigitte Huber is Professor of pathology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She has studied the presence of a specific retrovirus(HERV-K18) as a predictor for ME/CFS, as people who develop ME/CFS may be susceptible to activation of this ancient retrovirus in the human genome.
Annette Whittemore
Coming Soon
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Founder and President of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA.
The Institute is located on the medical campus of the University of Nevada.
Its mission is to serve those with complex neuro-immune diseases such as ME/CFS,
viral induced central nervous system dysfunction and fibromyalgia. Annette Whittemore
graduated in Elementary and Special Education at the University of Nevada and taught
children with neuro-cognitive deficits, such as those found in autism, ADD, and learning
disabilities. As the president and director of the current operations at the Institute
Annette supports the basic and clinical research program, and actively recruits physicians
and other support personnel for the Institute.
Dr Judy Mikovits
Dr Judy Mikovits, Research Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from George Washington University. She is Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Nevada CFS centre for Neuro-Immune disorders and has co-authored over 40 peer reviewed publications that address fundamental issues of viral pathogenesis, hematopoiesis and cytokine biology.
Plenary Session
At the end of the conference more questions were taken from the audience with Professor Malcolm Hooper mediating. .
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
-
IiMER Links
Hillary Johnson
Prior to IIMEC4 the charity arranged a pre-conference dinner evening with guest speakers Hillary Johnson and Dr Daniel Peterson.
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
-
IiMER Links
Professor Jonathan Brostoff
Professor Jonathan Brostoff MA DM DSc(Med) FRCP FRCPath FIBiol - Senior Research Fellow and Professor Emeritus of Allergy and Environmental Health at Kings College, London
Jonathan Brostoff is Senior Research Fellow and Professor Emeritus of Allergy and Environmental Health at Kings College, London. He was the Foundation Professor of Allergy and Environmental Health and Director of the Centre for Allergy Research at University College London. Whilst at University College Hospital he was Physician in charge of the Allergy Clinic. He is recognized as a leading international authority on food allergy and intolerance. Professor Brostoff was involved in one of the few, and much-quoted Spect scan studies of ME patients [Brainstem perfusion is impaired in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Costa DC, Tannock C and Brostoff J. Quarterly Journal of Medicine 1995:88:767 773]
Professor Garth Nicolson
Similar Infections Found in ME/CFS and Neurodegenerative and Neurobehavioral DiseasesThe Institute for Molecular Medicine at California
Professor Garth Nicolson PhD: - Research Professor at the Institute for Molecular Medicine, Laguna Beach, California, USA.
President, Chief Scientific Officer and a Research Professor at the Institute for Molecular Medicine, Laguna Beach, California, USA. Conjoint Professor, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Newcastle, Australia. Professor of Integrative Medicine, Capital University of Integrative Medicine, Washington DC. Professor Nicolson has published over 550 papers, three of them current content citation classics, and his recent publications include: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients subsequently diagnosed with Lyme Disease Borrelia burgdorferi: evidence for Mycoplasma species co-infections; Chronic infections in neurodegenerative and neurobehavioral diseases; New emerging infections: Their development, testing and resulting disease.
Annette Whittemore
Keynote SpeechWhittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Founder and President of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA.
The Institute is located on the medical campus of the University of Nevada.
Its mission is to serve those with complex neuro-immune diseases such as ME/CFS,
viral induced central nervous system dysfunction and fibromyalgia. Annette Whittemore
graduated in Elementary and Special Education at the University of Nevada and taught
children with neuro-cognitive deficits, such as those found in autism, ADD, and learning
disabilities. As the president and director of the current operations at the Institute
Annette supports the basic and clinical research program, and actively recruits physicians
and other support personnel for the Institute.
Professor Harald Nyland
Epidemics & ME: Lessons from the Giardia epidemic in NorwayDepartment of Neurology, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
Professor Harald Nyland MD, PhD: - Department of Neurology, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway
Professor Nyland has seen several thousand ME patients, among them many severely ill. His recent research involves an ME/CFS Epidemic Following a Giardia lamblia Infection in Bergen. Professor Nyland was knighted in 2007 for his services of over 30 years for MS patients in Norway.
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Dr Barbara Baumgarten
Services for correct diagnosis and Management/Treatment of MEHead of ME-centre at Ullevål University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
Dr Barbara Baumgarten MD
Head of ME-centre at Ullevål University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. Dr Barbara Baumgarten was born in Hamburg, Germany, and moved to Norway in 1980.
She studied medicine at the University of Oslo, graduated in 1992. From 1992-93 she worked at a hospital in internal medicine and surgery. From 1993 she has been working in General Practice, with a two year assignment at a nursing home.
Since 1996 she has had her own practice and has been seeing patients with ME since 1997.
From April 2006 she has been working one day a week as a GP at the department for infectious diseases, Ullevål University Hospital, Oslo. Her work there was to look at the need of specialized medical services for ME-patients.
That has resulted in a new ME-clinic. Since August 2008 her my main job at Ullevål University Hospital has been leader for the new ME-center, which was officially opened at December 11th 2008.
The ME Centre in Oslo is unique in that patients have been closely involved in its formation.
Dr Baumgarten has given many lectures about ME for GP’s, at hospitals and for the Norwegian ME Association.
She is a board member at the Oslo branch of the Norwegian Medical Association.
Professor Kenny De Meirleir
Research on Extremely Debilitated M.E. Patients Reveals the True Nature of the DisorderDirector of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic, Vrije Universiteit Brussels
Professor De Meirleir is a professor of Physiology and Internal Medicine at Free University of Brussels in Belgium. He is co-editor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Biological Approach, co-editor of the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and reviewer for more than 10 other medical journals. Dr. De Meirleir was one of four international experts on the panel that developed the Canadian Consensus Document for ME/CFS. He assesses/treats 3,000 to 4,000 ME/CFS patients annually. Professor Kenny L. De Meirleir, MD received his medical degree at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Magna cum laude. His research activities in Chronic Fatigue date back to 1990. His other research activities in exercise physiology, metabolism and endocrinology have led to the Solvay Prize and the NATO research award. He is director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as well as consultant in the Division of Cardiology and director of the cardiac rehabilitation program at Vrijie Universiteit Brussel.
Dr Dan Peterson
Treatment Regimes for the Most Severe CasesWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Daniel L. Peterson, Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, M.D., is an internist in Incline Village, Nevada and recognized medical expert on CFS/ME. Dr. Peterson is founder of Simmaron Research, and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Peterson has devoted 25 years of his clinical career to diagnosing and caring for patients with CFS/ME and related neuroimmune disorders, and collaborating with researchers to better understand the illness. Dr. Peterson’s repository of more than 1,000 patient biological samples and records is a rich resource for research studies. His experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
With over 25 years of medical practice, Dr Daniel L. Peterson has become a sought-after internist for diagnosing difficult and complex medical cases.
When several patients in Incline Village became ill with symptoms that resembled persistent mononucleosis, Daniel Peterson was one of the first physicians to recognize an outbreak of what is known as ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). He became a pioneering physician and researcher in understanding the biological characteristics and methods for diagnosing, managing and treating ME/CFS. He has also performed major studies of Ampligen as a treatment for ME/CFS, and studying the possible role of human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) in CFS patients.
Dr. Peterson's experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
Other Links
Professor Basant Puri
Professor Basant K. Puri
Professor Basant K. Puri is both a medical practitioner, working as a consultant at Hammersmith Hospital in London, and a senior scientist, working at Imperial College London. He is head of the Lipid Neuroscience Group at Imperial College and is the author of over 130 peer-reviewed medical and scientific papers and over 30 books.
Dr John Chia
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Dr Jean Monro
Dr Jean Monro - Medical Director of the Breakspear Hospital, UK
Dr Jean Monro is the Medical Director of the Breakspear Hospital and is an internationally recognised specialist in environmental medicine. Dr Monro is a Fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, a Board Certified US examination. Dr Monro was Medical Advisor to Sanity and Medical Advisor to the Coeliac Association. In early 2007, Dr Monro was asked to be a witness for the House of Lords' Select Committee on Science and Technology on allergy treatments.
Dr Judy Mikovits
Dr Judy Mikovits, Research Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from George Washington University. She is Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Nevada CFS centre for Neuro-Immune disorders and has co-authored over 40 peer reviewed publications that address fundamental issues of viral pathogenesis, hematopoiesis and cytokine biology.
Plenary Session
At the end of the conference more questions were taken from the audience with Professor Jonathan Brostoff mediating. .
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
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IiMER Links
IIMEC4 Interviews with Speakers
Priorto the IIMEC4 conference Invest in ME arranged interviews with some of the speakers by Professor Malcolm Hooper.
We hope that you have enjoyed the conference videos.
Invest in ME Research is a charity of volunteers attempting to make progress in research into ME
We welcome support to enable us to continue our efforts.
-
IiMER Links
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Emeritus Professor Sunderland UniversityConference Chair
Coming soon
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Dr Leonard Jason
CASE DEFINITIONS OF ME/CFS – INCLUDING PAEDIATRIC CASE DEFINITIONDePaul University, Chicago
Dr Leonard Jason, DePaul University, Chicago
Dr Leonard Jason has been among the most prolific of all ME/CFS researchers. For more than a decade, Dr Jason and his team at DePaul University’s Centre for Community Research in Chicago have worked to define the scope and impact of ME/CFS worldwide. Dr Jason is Vice President of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (now the IACFS/ME) and has been a key driver of CFS research since 1991, and is uniquely positioned to support collaboration between CFS researchers, patients, and government decision makers. His studies have shown that the direct and indirect costs of ME/CFS amount to $20 billion in the U.S. each year, and more than 1 million people suffer from ME/CFS as opposed to the estimated 20,000 people originally reported by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Dr Jonathan Kerr
GENE EXPRESSION IN ME/CFS: A MEANS OF SUBTYPINGSt. George’s University of London
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Dr Martin Lerner
DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF ME/CFS LONGITUDINAL OBSERVATIONS OF CARDIAC AND ANTIVIRAL STUDIESInfectious Disease Specialist, Michigan, USA
Dr Martin Lerner, Infectious Disease Specialist, Michigan, USA
Dr. Lerner was a professor of Internal Medicine, and served as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases for the School of Medicine and Detroit Receiving Hospital from 1963 to 1982. He was chief of the Department of Medicine at Hutzel Hospital from 1970 to 1982.
He established a clinical virology laboratory at the School of Medicine and trained 33 physicians in infectious diseases. He published several groundbreaking papers on Herpes Encephalitics, pneumonia, cardiomyopathy and immunology.
His efforts on behalf of CFS patients led to his development of the Energy Index Patient Score, a functional capacity measurement tool used to diagnose patient fatigue at a time when such a benchmark was lacking. The development of the EIPS resulted in one of his five patents related to the diagnosis and treatment of CFS.
In 2010, Dr. Lerner received the Heart Award from Mothers Against Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, an international advocacy organization representing patients around the world with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or CFS, for his more than 25 years of research on the condition and treating CFS patients.
Dr. Lerner received his medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine and completed his residency in Internal Medicine with Harvard Medical Services at Boston City Hospital and Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. He served two years with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Unit, and conducted a three-year research fellowship in Infectious Disease at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory, Boston City Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
He was an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Association of Physicians, as well as a master of the American College of Physicians and governor of the Michigan American College of Physicians.
Dr Julia Newton
AUTONOMIC DYSFUNCTION: IDENTIFICATION OF AETIOLOGICALLY DISTINCT SUBJECT GROUPS WITHIN ME/CFSInstitute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, UK
Dr Julia Newton - Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, UK
Dr Julia Newton is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University. Dr Newton has been working on autonomic dysfunction in ME/CFS patients and will be presenting results of her continuing research.
Dr John Chia
RESEARCH ON THE ROLE OF CHRONIC ENTEROVIRUS INFECTION IN CFS/MEInfectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Dr Irving Spurr
A GP’S EXPERIENCES OF DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENTS OF ME/CFSGP, UK
Dr Irving Spurr - GP, UK
Dr Irving Spurr is a GP and brings enormous experience of ME/CFS to the conference. Dr Spurr worked with Dr John Richardson on enteroviruses and their implication in ME and is chairman of the John Richardson Group.
Dr Jean Monro
CASE STUDIES OF DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENTS FOR ME/CFSMedical Director of the Breakspear Hospital, UK
Dr Jean Monro - Medical Director of the Breakspear Hospital, UK
Dr Jean Monro is the Medical Director of the Breakspear Hospital and is an internationally recognised specialist in environmental medicine. Dr Monro is a Fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, a Board Certified US examination. Dr Monro was Medical Advisor to Sanity and Medical Advisor to the Coeliac Association. In early 2007, Dr Monro was asked to be a witness for the House of Lords' Select Committee on Science and Technology on allergy treatments.
Dr Judy Mikovits
HOW SUB GROUPING WILL AFFECT RESEARCH STRATEGIESResearch Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits, Research Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Judy Mikovits obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from George Washington University. She is Research Director at the Whittemore Peterson Nevada CFS centre for Neuro-Immune disorders and has co-authored over 40 peer reviewed publications that address fundamental issues of viral pathogenesis, hematopoiesis and cytokine biology.
IIMEC3 Plenary Session
HOW SUB GROUPING WILL AFFECT RESEARCH STRATEGIESResearch Director, Whittemore Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
IIMEC3 Plenary Session
Plenary session at the end of the IIMEC3 Conference.
Interview with Dr John Chia
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperOrganised by Invest in ME
Dr John Chia, Infectious Disease Specialist, Torrance, California, USA
Dr John Chia is an infectious disease specialist practicing in Torrance, California, USA and has published research recently (Chronic fatigue syndrome associated with chronic enterovirus infection of the stomach) on the role of enteroviruses in the aetiolgy of ME/CFS – an area which has been implicated as one of the causes by a number of studies. There are more than 70 different types of enteroviruses that can affect the central nervous system, heart and muscles, all of which is consistent with the symptoms of ME/CFS. By analyzing samples of stomach tissue from 165 patients with CFS, Dr Chia's team discovered that 82% of these individuals had high levels of enteroviruses in their digestive systems. Dr Chia's research may result in the development of antiviral drugs to treat the debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS.
Interview with IIMEC3 Presenters
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperOrganised by Invest in ME
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Norman Lamb MP
Member of UK Parliament for Norwich NorthKynote Speech
Norman Lamb MP - MP for Norwich North
Norman Lamb entered Parliament at his second attempt in 2001, gaining this seat from the Conservatives.
Norman Lamb read law at the University of Leicester. He worked for Norwich City Council as a senior assistant solicitor before joining Norfolk solicitors Steele and Co., where he became a partner and head of the firm's specialist Employment Unit.
He worked for a year as a Parliamentary Assistant for Greville Janner, QC, MP.
He was a member of Norwich City Council 1987-91, leading the Liberal Democrats for the last two years of his term.
He has built a strong reputation in Norfolk as a campaigner for improved health services. He has been a critic of cuts in bed numbers and has highlighted the resulting unacceptable level of cancelled operations.
As an MP his work on local issues includes adjournment debates on: orthopaedic waiting times in Norfolk; the lack of school transport services in North Norfolk; police funding in Norfolk; funding for Further Education Colleges; the provision of care for people with dementia; and coastal erosion. Norman has been Lib Dem Deputy Spokesperson for International Development (2001-02), a Treasury spokesman (2002-03), PPS (Parliamentary Private Secretary) to Charles Kennedy (2003-05) and Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary (2005-06). He was a principal author of the party's policy on Royal Mail. From March to December 2006, Norman was Chief of Staff for party leader Sir Menzies Campbell.
In December 2006 he was appointed Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary. He has a particular interest in Africa: he has led Adjournment Debates on the HIV/AIDS crisis facing Africa and Asia, the controversial sale of military air traffic control system in Tanzania and the situation in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Dr Derek Pheby
Dr Derek PhebyCase Study - Epidemiology of ME/CFS
Dr. Derek Pheby - Senior Fellow, University of Hull
Epidemiological Research and the ME Observatory plus Factors involved in the development of Severe ME
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Dr Jonathan KerrVIRAL AND HUMAN GENE EXPRESSION, DEVELOPMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC TEST, NEWS OF CLINICAL TRIALS
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Professor Kenny De Meirleir
Director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic, Vrije Universiteit BrusselsTREATMENTS FOR ME/CFS INTEGRATIVE & COMPLIMENTARY MEDICINE
Professor De Meirleir is a professor of Physiology and Internal Medicine at Free University of Brussels in Belgium. He is co-editor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Biological Approach, co-editor of the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and reviewer for more than 10 other medical journals. Dr. De Meirleir was one of four international experts on the panel that developed the Canadian Consensus Document for ME/CFS. He assesses/treats 3,000 to 4,000 ME/CFS patients annually. Professor Kenny L. De Meirleir, MD received his medical degree at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Magna cum laude. His research activities in Chronic Fatigue date back to 1990. His other research activities in exercise physiology, metabolism and endocrinology have led to the Solvay Prize and the NATO research award. He is director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as well as consultant in the Division of Cardiology and director of the cardiac rehabilitation program at Vrijie Universiteit Brussel.
A Model ME/CFS Clinic - The CFS Clinic
Annette WhittemoreWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Founder and President of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA.
The Institute is located on the medical campus of the University of Nevada.
Its mission is to serve those with complex neuro-immune diseases such as ME/CFS,
viral induced central nervous system dysfunction and fibromyalgia. Annette Whittemore
graduated in Elementary and Special Education at the University of Nevada and taught
children with neuro-cognitive deficits, such as those found in autism, ADD, and learning
disabilities. As the president and director of the current operations at the Institute
Annette supports the basic and clinical research program, and actively recruits physicians
and other support personnel for the Institute.
Dr Dan Peterson
Biomedical Research into MEWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Daniel L. Peterson, Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, M.D., is an internist in Incline Village, Nevada and recognized medical expert on CFS/ME. Dr. Peterson is founder of Simmaron Research, and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Peterson has devoted 25 years of his clinical career to diagnosing and caring for patients with CFS/ME and related neuroimmune disorders, and collaborating with researchers to better understand the illness. Dr. Peterson’s repository of more than 1,000 patient biological samples and records is a rich resource for research studies. His experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
With over 25 years of medical practice, Dr Daniel L. Peterson has become a sought-after internist for diagnosing difficult and complex medical cases.
When several patients in Incline Village became ill with symptoms that resembled persistent mononucleosis, Daniel Peterson was one of the first physicians to recognize an outbreak of what is known as ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). He became a pioneering physician and researcher in understanding the biological characteristics and methods for diagnosing, managing and treating ME/CFS. He has also performed major studies of Ampligen as a treatment for ME/CFS, and studying the possible role of human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) in CFS patients.
Dr. Peterson's experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
Other Links
Dr Vance Spence
Biomedical Research into ME/CFS: Where does it go from hereDr. Vance Spence - Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine,University of Dundee Medical School, UK
Dr. Spence is a graduate of the Universities of London and Dundee. He was a Principal Clinical Scientist responsible for vascular services and research and, in 1997, he rejoined the University of Dundee Medical School as Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine.
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Emeritus Professor Sunderland UniversityDay 1 - Summary of “KEY FINDINGS” of Past Biomedical Research
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Ellen Piro
President of the Norwegian ME ForeningDay 1 - NICE Guidelines - Experiences from Norway
Ellen Piro, President of the Norwegian ME Forening
Ellen Piro is the president of the Norwegian M.E. Association. In 1995 she circulated a worldwide petition to get the CFS name changed and she personally brought it to the Dublin CFS conference to urge the scientists to make a change. Recently Ellen has been involved in the investigation into the use of meningitis vaccines in Norway and New Zealand and which has ben connected with the cases of over 250 ME patients. She has also contributed to the debate on the Norwegian equivalent of the NICE guidelines.
Dr Byron Hyde
Dr Byron HydeME AND INSURANCE COMPANIES
Dr. Byron Hyde
Dr. Byron Hyde attended the Haileybury School of Mines and worked as a geophysicist. He then did premedicine in the Faculty of Medicine and University College, University of Toronto, obtaining a degree in chemistry and nutrition. He graduated in medicine from the University of Ottawa where he was the Director and Chief of the International Exchange Program for the Canadian Association of Medical Students and Interns (CAMSI). Dr. Hyde founded the International Summer School in Tropical Medicine. He interned at Hotel Dieu in Montreal, was a resident at St. Justine Hospital in Montreal and at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He also studied in Munich at the University Kinderklinik and in Paris at the Necker Hospital for Children.
He was a research chemist at the Roscoe B. Jackson Laboratory at Bar Harbour, Maine, a leading world laboratory in immunological research. Following this, he was Chief Technician in charge of the Electron Microscope Laboratory in Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children, followed by a similar post at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hyde has authored a book on Electron Microscopy and two non-medical books.
Dr. Hyde has been a physician for 25 years and has performed charitable work as a physician in Laos and the Caribbean. He held the position of Chairman of the Ottawa Community Health Services Association, and is presently Chairman of The Nightingale Research Foundation. In 1984, Dr. Hyde began the full-time study of the disease process then known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (renamed in 1986 by Dr. Gary Holmes in the USA to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).
He has worked exclusively with M.E./CFS patients since 1985. In 1988, Dr. Hyde organized an association and founded The Nightingale Research Foundation, dedicated to the study of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He has also acted as Chairman of the 1990 Cambridge Easter Symposium and of the Workshop on Canadian Research Directions for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic fatigue Syndrome in May, 1991, at the University of British Columbia. (the above was extracted from the Nightingale Foundation.)
Other Links
Plenary Session
Questions to the speakers on Day 1 of the conference.
Annette Whittemore and Dr Dan Peterson
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Ellen Piro and Dr Byron Hyde
Interview with Professor Malcolm HooperDay 1 of #IIMEC2
Error processing SSI file
Dr Ian Gibson
Former Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
-
References
Professor Martin Pall
Professor Martin Pall, Professor School of Molecular Biosciences WWAMI Program Washington State University
Dr. Pall has long-term interests in biological regulatory mechanisms. His current research is focussed on a theory he has developed on the cause (etiology) of chronic fatigue syndrome and the overlapping and related conditions of multiple chemical sensitivity, fibromyalgia, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
According to this theory, each of these is initiated by stresses that induce increased levels of nitric oxide and its oxidant product peroxynitrite, followed by a biochemical vicious cycle mechanism associated with chronic elevation of these two compounds. Symptoms of these conditions are produced by both nitric oxide and peroxynitrite and treatment should focus on downregulating this vicious cycle mechanism. Vitamin B-12 injections commonly used to treat these conditions are proposed to act through the action of one form of B-12 (hydroxocobalamin) which is a potent nitric oxide scavenger. Dozens of biochemical and physiological observations provide support for this theory. The most puzzling features of these conditions are explained by this novel theory.
Dr. Abhijit Chaudhuri
Dr. Abhijit ChaudhuriPathology of ME/CFS
Dr. Abhijit Chaudhuri
Dr Vance Spence
Vascular Aspects of ME/CFSDr. Vance Spence - Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine,University of Dundee Medical School, UK
Dr. Spence is a graduate of the Universities of London and Dundee. He was a Principal Clinical Scientist responsible for vascular services and research and, in 1997, he rejoined the University of Dundee Medical School as Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine.
Dr. Sarah Myhill
Dr. Sarah Myhill GPDay 2 - Treatments and Diagnosis – A GP’s Perspective
Dr Sarah Myhill - GP, UK
Dr. Myhill is a general practitioner with a particular interest in chronic fatigue syndrome. She qualified from Middlesex Hospital Medical School with honours in 1981 and has worked in the NHS and in private practice. Dr. Myhill has consulted over 100 farmers with CFS following organophosphate poisoning and 100 women with CFS following silicone poisoning either from breast implants or injection. Over the past twenty years Dr. Myhill estimates to have seen over 1,500 cases of chronic fatigue syndrome largely caused by viral infection. During the early years she reported these cases individually to the Medical Devices Agency.
Professor Kenny De Meirleir
Director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic, Vrije Universiteit BrusselsDay 2 - Treatments for ME/CFS Integrative & Complimentary Medicine
Professor De Meirleir is a professor of Physiology and Internal Medicine at Free University of Brussels in Belgium. He is co-editor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Biological Approach, co-editor of the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and reviewer for more than 10 other medical journals. Dr. De Meirleir was one of four international experts on the panel that developed the Canadian Consensus Document for ME/CFS. He assesses/treats 3,000 to 4,000 ME/CFS patients annually. Professor Kenny L. De Meirleir, MD received his medical degree at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Magna cum laude. His research activities in Chronic Fatigue date back to 1990. His other research activities in exercise physiology, metabolism and endocrinology have led to the Solvay Prize and the NATO research award. He is director of the Human Performance Laboratory and Fatigue Clinic at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as well as consultant in the Division of Cardiology and director of the cardiac rehabilitation program at Vrijie Universiteit Brussel.
Dr Byron Hyde
Nightingale FoundationDay 2 - CFS patient and the resulting pathological findings or Case Studies / Thyroid Problems
Dr. Byron Hyde
Dr. Byron Hyde attended the Haileybury School of Mines and worked as a geophysicist. He then did premedicine in the Faculty of Medicine and University College, University of Toronto, obtaining a degree in chemistry and nutrition. He graduated in medicine from the University of Ottawa where he was the Director and Chief of the International Exchange Program for the Canadian Association of Medical Students and Interns (CAMSI). Dr. Hyde founded the International Summer School in Tropical Medicine. He interned at Hotel Dieu in Montreal, was a resident at St. Justine Hospital in Montreal and at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He also studied in Munich at the University Kinderklinik and in Paris at the Necker Hospital for Children.
He was a research chemist at the Roscoe B. Jackson Laboratory at Bar Harbour, Maine, a leading world laboratory in immunological research. Following this, he was Chief Technician in charge of the Electron Microscope Laboratory in Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children, followed by a similar post at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hyde has authored a book on Electron Microscopy and two non-medical books.
Dr. Hyde has been a physician for 25 years and has performed charitable work as a physician in Laos and the Caribbean. He held the position of Chairman of the Ottawa Community Health Services Association, and is presently Chairman of The Nightingale Research Foundation. In 1984, Dr. Hyde began the full-time study of the disease process then known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (renamed in 1986 by Dr. Gary Holmes in the USA to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).
He has worked exclusively with M.E./CFS patients since 1985. In 1988, Dr. Hyde organized an association and founded The Nightingale Research Foundation, dedicated to the study of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He has also acted as Chairman of the 1990 Cambridge Easter Symposium and of the Workshop on Canadian Research Directions for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic fatigue Syndrome in May, 1991, at the University of British Columbia. (the above was extracted from the Nightingale Foundation.)
Other Links
Dr Jonathan Kerr
St. George’s University of LondonDay 2 - VIRAL AND HUMAN GENE EXPRESSION, DEVELOPMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC TEST, NEWS OF CLINICAL TRIALS
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Dr Dan Peterson
Biomedical Research into MEWhittemore-Peterson Institute, Nevada, USA
Dr Daniel L. Peterson, Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuroimmune Diseases, Reno, Nevada, USA
Daniel L. Peterson, M.D., is an internist in Incline Village, Nevada and recognized medical expert on CFS/ME. Dr. Peterson is founder of Simmaron Research, and serves on its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Peterson has devoted 25 years of his clinical career to diagnosing and caring for patients with CFS/ME and related neuroimmune disorders, and collaborating with researchers to better understand the illness. Dr. Peterson’s repository of more than 1,000 patient biological samples and records is a rich resource for research studies. His experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
With over 25 years of medical practice, Dr Daniel L. Peterson has become a sought-after internist for diagnosing difficult and complex medical cases.
When several patients in Incline Village became ill with symptoms that resembled persistent mononucleosis, Daniel Peterson was one of the first physicians to recognize an outbreak of what is known as ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). He became a pioneering physician and researcher in understanding the biological characteristics and methods for diagnosing, managing and treating ME/CFS. He has also performed major studies of Ampligen as a treatment for ME/CFS, and studying the possible role of human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) in CFS patients.
Dr. Peterson's experience as both a clinician and a research collaborator provides a unique perspective on CFS/ME for developing translational science.
Other Links
Professor Malcolm Hooper
SUMMARY - FUTURE STRATEGY FOR ME RESEARCH, DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENTEmeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
IIMEC2 Day 2 Plenary Session
PANEL DISCUSSION: THE WAY FORWARD FOLLOWED BY OPEN FORUMQuestions from the audience at IIMEC2 Day 2
Questions to the speakers on Day 2 of the conference.
Interview Dr Ian Gibson MP and Sarah Vero
with Professor Malcolm HooperFollowing the Gibson Inquiry into ME
The Gibson Inquiry 2006
Dr. Ian Gibson MP for Norwich North called for an independent inquiry into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and set up a working group.
Read more of the Inquiry into the
status of status of
CFS/M.E. and M.E. and
research into research into
causes and
treatment
- click here
Dr Nigel Speight
Paediatrics and MEDay 2 - Paediatrics and ME
Dr Nigel Speight
Dr Nigel Speight was a consultant paediatrician in Durham for over 25 years. He has seen a large number of cases of childhood ME in his own area and has frequently been called on to support cases of where children have been treated poorly by social and healthcare services. He has played a major role in rescuing children from care proceedings and is well qualified to comment on the state of treatment of ME patients. Dr Speight presented at the 2nd Invest in ME Research International ME Conference 2007 in London and gave the pre-conference dinner keynote speech at the 9th Invest in ME Research International ME COnference in 2014. He is considered to be one of the most experienced ME consultants in the UK.
Further Information
Read more of the The General Medical Council - Dr Nigel Speight
- click here
Dr Ian Gibson
Former Dean of Biological Sciences, UEA
Dr Ian Gibson was the former Labour MP for Norwich North. Dr Gibson worked at University of East Anglia for 32 years,
became Dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UEA in 1991
and was head of a cancer research team and set up the Francesca Gunn Leukaemia Laboratory at UEA.
In 2011 Dr Gibson received an honorary doctorate of civil law from UEA.
A scientist, politician and academic - Dr.Ian Gibson was uniquely qualified to comment on how science and politics have become intertwined.
Other Links
-
References
Dr Bruce Carruthers
Dr Bruce Carruthers
Dr Bruce Carruthers graduated from Kodaikanal International School in India before moving to Canada to study at his father’s alma mater,
Queen’s University, Ontario. His excellence was quickly recognized when he graduated in medicine as a dual gold medalist in Surgery, and Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Following an internship at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans and a residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania as a
Research Fellow of the American Diabetes Association,
Dr. Carruthers settled with his family in Vancouver.
He earned a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada with the specialty of Internal Medicine.
For many years Dr. Carruthers was an Assistant Professor and a Medical Research Council of Canada Scholar,
lecturing and carrying out research in diabetes and metabolic disorders in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
From 1978 until his retirement, Dr. Carruthers had a private practice as a Consultant in Internal Medicine, with focus on diabetes and metabolic
disorders and later, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).
His compassionate nature and adept care improved the quality of life of his patients.
Throughout his outstanding medical career, which spanned more than fifty years, Dr. Carruthers treated more patients inflicted with ME
than any other doctor in Canada.
Other Links
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper
Professor Malcolm Hooper is Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland and chaired many of the initial Invest in ME Research International ME Conferences.
Professor Hooper is an internationally-renowned expert on ME/CFS and a tireless campaigner for patients' rights.
Professor Hooper has previously chaired Invest in ME conferences and participates in The Hooper Interviews - interviews with conference speakers at the Invest in ME Conference.
Professor Hooper graduated from University of London and had held appointments at Sunderland Technical College, Sunderland Polytechnic and the University of Sunderland,
where he was made Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1993.
He has served at many UK universities as well as in India and Tanzania.
He has inaugurated links with Indian research institutions and universities and celebrated 25 years of productive
and on-going links which have,
particularly, involved the design and development of new drugs for tropical diseases and an exploration of natural
products associated with Ayurvedic medicine.
He has published some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the field of medicinal chemistry together with major
reviews on the Chemotherapy of Leprosy,
the Chemistry of Isatogens. Edited one book on the Chemotherapy of Tropical Diseases.
He acted as a referee for a number of important journals and
served on one editorial board. He has served on committees of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) and the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).
Professor Hooper is a member of a number of learned bodies, including
the Royal Chemical Society, the British Pharmacological Society and the Society for Drug Research (SDR),
now renamed the Society for
Medicines Research, where he has served on the committee for 12 years and served as Chairman for 2 years.
This involved the planning
and organising of major national and international conferences. He was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the
Gulf Veterans Association (GVA)
and accepted by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as their nominee on the Independent Panel established to consider
the possible interactions between
Vaccines and NAPS tablets.
He has also served on the Gulf Support Group convened at the Royal British Legion. His involvement with the GVA brought
contact with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalegic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/M.E.) and related disorders. Gulf War Illness/Syndrome
(GWI/S) has much in common
with M.E./CFS.
He is Patron of the Sunderland and South Shields M.E. Association and a member of the Newcastle Research Group,
which includes eminent
physicians and scientists performing research in to CFS/M.E., where one recent aspect has been the identification of
organochlorine pesticide poisoning
being misdiagnosed as M.E./CFS. He has addressed meetings of the Pesticide Exchange Network and consulted to the
Organo-Phosphate Information Network (OPIN).
He worked with the Autism Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Sunderland for over 20 years, leading to involvement
in biochemical studies to offer help, support and treatment for people with autism. This has also lead to research and
urine-analysis of Indolyl-Acroyl-Glycine (IAG), which is an unusual metabolite found in excess of 90% of people
examined in different groups of GWV, M.E./CFS and Organo-Phosphate (OP) poisoning sufferers. He served on the
General Synod of the Church of England from 1970 to 1980 and he is a Christian Lay Leader, Preacher and Teacher.
He is currently involved in three environmental campaigns: Toxic waste dumping, including campaign against sewage in
the sea presenting to the Select Committee on
Sewage Treatment and Disposal GWI/S, presenting to the Defence Select Committee M.E./CFS and OP/Pesticide poisoning
Other Links
Jane Colby
Jane Colby
Jane Colby is a former head teacher, a member of the National Association of Educational Inspectors Advisers and Consultants, co-author of the largest study to date of ME/CFS (Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 1997) showing that this condition is the largest cause of long-term sickness absence from school, and a medical and educational author for professional journals and patient literature.
As a member of the Chief Medical Officer’s Working Group on CFS/ME, she played a major role in writing Chapter 5 of the subsequent Report (DOH 2002).
Dr Byron Hyde
Dr. Byron Hyde
Dr. Byron Hyde attended the Haileybury School of Mines and worked as a geophysicist. He then did premedicine in the Faculty of Medicine and University College, University of Toronto, obtaining a degree in chemistry and nutrition. He graduated in medicine from the University of Ottawa where he was the Director and Chief of the International Exchange Program for the Canadian Association of Medical Students and Interns (CAMSI). Dr. Hyde founded the International Summer School in Tropical Medicine. He interned at Hotel Dieu in Montreal, was a resident at St. Justine Hospital in Montreal and at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He also studied in Munich at the University Kinderklinik and in Paris at the Necker Hospital for Children.
He was a research chemist at the Roscoe B. Jackson Laboratory at Bar Harbour, Maine, a leading world laboratory in immunological research. Following this, he was Chief Technician in charge of the Electron Microscope Laboratory in Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children, followed by a similar post at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hyde has authored a book on Electron Microscopy and two non-medical books.
Dr. Hyde has been a physician for 25 years and has performed charitable work as a physician in Laos and the Caribbean. He held the position of Chairman of the Ottawa Community Health Services Association, and is presently Chairman of The Nightingale Research Foundation. In 1984, Dr. Hyde began the full-time study of the disease process then known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (renamed in 1986 by Dr. Gary Holmes in the USA to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).
He has worked exclusively with M.E./CFS patients since 1985. In 1988, Dr. Hyde organized an association and founded The Nightingale Research Foundation, dedicated to the study of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He has also acted as Chairman of the 1990 Cambridge Easter Symposium and of the Workshop on Canadian Research Directions for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic fatigue Syndrome in May, 1991, at the University of British Columbia. (the above was extracted from the Nightingale Foundation.)
Other Links
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Dr Jonathan Kerr
Jonathan Kerr qualified in medicine from Queen’s University of Belfast (1987), and completed training as a medical microbiologist (1995). He has worked as a microbiologist in Belfast, Manchester and London, taking up post as a Consultant Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Royal Brompton Hospital / Imperial College in June 2001, and then Sir Joseph Hotung Clinical Senior Lecturer in Inflammation at St George’s University of London in 2005. His interest in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) began during a study of the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection, when he showed that a percentage of infected cases developed CFS which persisted for several years. He is now the principal investigator in a programme of research in CFS. This involves development of a diagnostic test using mass spectrometry, analysis of human and viral gene expression in the white blood cells, and clinical trials of immunomodulatory drugs. Dr. Jonathan Kerr and colleagues at St. George’s University of London reported in the July 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology that a preliminary study of 25 CFS patients and 25 matched healthy controls revealed abnormalities in 35 of 9,522 genes analyzed using microarray technology. Polymerase chain reaction studies showed the same results for 16 of these genes. The study, and its results, raises some important questions. The first of which pertains to the need for funding of microbiological CFS research. He leads a group of 5 scientists at St George's.
His research on gene expression has resulted in several published papers – including evidence of 7 distinct sub types of ME/CFS.
Dr. Kerr also runs a ME/CFS research program. He studied the consequences of parvovirus B19 infection in ME/CFS and showed that a percentage of infected cases developed ME/CFS which persisted for several years. He has reported 88 human genes whose dysregulation is associated with CFS, and which can be used to derive genomic CFS subtypes which have marked differences in clinical phenotype and severity.
Other Links
Professor Basant Puri
Professor Basant K. Puri
Professor Basant K. Puri is both a medical practitioner, working as a consultant at Hammersmith Hospital in London, and a senior scientist, working at Imperial College London. He is head of the Lipid Neuroscience Group at Imperial College and is the author of over 130 peer-reviewed medical and scientific papers and over 30 books.
Plenary Session
Plenary Session for IIMEC1
Chaired by Professor Malcolm Hooper Questions from the audience at IIMEC1.
Bonus Video - Norwegian TV
SEVERE ME on Norway's 'TV 1
From the IiMER Conference 2006 DVD - Severe ME as shown from Norwegian TV channel NRK's Puls programme.
Subtitles provided by Invest in ME.
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Last Update May 2021