The ME Association has joined forces with local group OMEGA to host our annual ME Question Time at Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD, at 2pm on Saturday, September 27.
We will be fielding our usual strong panel of speakers – MEA medical adviser Dr Charles Shepherd, MEA paediatric adviser Dr Nigel Speight, registered dietitian Sue Luscombe and Jane Colby, executive director of the Young ME Sufferers Trust. This year they will be joined by mitochondrial specialist Dr Karl Morten, from the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
Entry will be free and tea, coffee and light refreshments will be served in the interval. But, in a departure from our usual practice, we are asking people who intend to come to let us have an idea of numbers in advance for catering purposes. Please email: admin@meassociation.org.uk or phone 01280 818 968.
A quiet room with seating will be available close to the meeting room.
This is a modern but fairly small college building on the north (just off Banbury Road) side of Oxford. It has some very pretty gardens leading down to the River Cherwell – as well as a small harbour connecting to the river. Enter the gardens from the corridor leading from the conference hall to the refectory. This is well worth a walk, if you are able to do so.
SEATING AND ACCESS
The conference hall is tiered with flat-level access for wheelchairs all the way from the entrance and college car park – which is very near. We will reserve seats on the first two or three rows for people with mobility problems.
CAR PARKING
There are approx 50 to 60 car parking spaces booked for the meeting in the college car parks, which are all a short walking distance from the conference hall. These will be made available on a first-come first-served basis. Please note that, while there is some free parking (limited to three hours on a Saturday) on some of the surrounding residential streets, we are advised that this can fill up quite quickly on a Saturday. There are no public car parks very close to the College.
BUS, TRAIN, PARK-AND-RIDE
Banbury Road has a variety of buses – 2, 14, etc – going every few minutes into the centre of Oxford/Randolph Hotel where there is a taxi rank. The journey takes five to 10 minutes. The 14 bus goes to the train station. It is a five to 10 minute walk down Linton Road to the Banbury Road bus stops where there are bus stops for the city centre and from a Park and Ride car park at Water Eaton. There are other park and ride car parks all round Oxford. The bus from the Pear Tree Park and Ride goes down Woodstock Road, which runs roughly parallel to Banbury Road.
Oxford Train Station is about 10 minutes by taxi from Wolfson College
Details of Oxford parking, Park-and-Ride, etc
ACCOMMODATION IN OXFORD
If you want to stay overnight on Friday or the Saturday, some of the Oxford Colleges have reduced rate student accommodation. There are no rooms available at Wolfson College.
Oxford University vacation accommodation website
FOOD
The college refectory will not be open for lunch. There are a few cafes and restaurants on Banbury road but parking is very difficult. There is a cafe and restaurant at the Cherwell Boat House – about 10 minutes walk from the College.
Tea, coffee and cold drinks will be available during the interval at 3.30pm
LOCAL ATTRACTION
The historic Cherwell Boathouse is situated on the River Cherwell. http://www.cherwellboathouse.co.uk Besides food and drink, there is a nice walk along the river. There are punts for hire as well!
Hello. Please could you tell us a little more about Mitochondrial Specialist Dr Karl Morten from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford? I haven’t heard about him in connection with ME research before. Many thanks.
Hi Jackie
You can find details about Dr Morten and his research group at http://www.obs-gyn.ox.ac.uk/research/karl-morten/
Norman Booth from OMEGA has invited Dr Morten to speak at the Question Time. I will leave it to Norman to respond to you when he next looks at this website.
Best wishes
Tony
Thanks for your reply Tony. This all looks very encouraging and an interesting avenue to pursue. I look forward to hearing more in due course. Much appreciated.
Working together with Dr Sarah Myhill and biochemist Dr John McLaren-Howard I have published 3 papers in a peer-reviewed medical journal on the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in people with ME/CFS. This work can be viewed or down-loaded at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Norman+E+Booth
This published work needs to be replicated or confirmed by other scientists. Otherwise, it is not widely accepted. The relevance of mitochondrial dysfunction in ME/CFS is considered by some UK health professionals to be “contentious” even though it has been found in other illnesses including several other neurological illnesses. After several years of searching I have found a scientist in Oxfordshire who has the skills and now has the interest to independently look into the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in ME/CFS. Dr Karl Morten manages one of the research labs at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Karl is an expert on mitochondria and the latest techniques in use to measure their performance. He has current projects on the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in type 2 diabetes, and the utilization of metabolic manipulation as a therapeutic pathway in cancer treatment. He has a major interest in developing new techniques and utilizing new technology. In 2009 he initiated the annual MitOX meeting to bring together different Oxford groups interested in mitochondria. Now in its 5th year (this year on 9th December) MitOX attracts over 100 delegates from all over the UK and Europe. Karl’s lab collaborates with other Oxford groups wishing to investigate mitochondrial function, including groups from Oncology, Physiology, Neurosciences, Engineering, Radiobiology, Orthopaedics and Diabetes/Endocrinology.
There are a number of obstacles to overcome in starting a project in a new research area – finding a suitable post-doctoral scientist to work on it, finding a suitable source of funding and writing a grant application, figuring out how to get fresh blood samples from Oxfordshire patients and controls (and getting ethics approval), and deciding what are the best attributes to measure and how best to measure them.
I am extremely happy that Karl has agreed to give a short talk at this event.
Splendid! Thank you very much, Norman.
Final programme: ME Association Question Time/OMEGA 25th anniversary event on Saturday 27th Sept 2014
13:30 Registration
Attendees can hand in questions they would like answered
Quiet room available to sit or lie down
14:00 Start of event in auditorium
OMEGA member Patricia Wells to talk about OMEGA history, including establishment of OCCMET service 10 years ago
14:15 Charles Shepherd to report on Research Collaborative Conference on 1-2 Sept.
14:20 Charles Shepherd to introduce other panelists:
Dr Nigel Speight, Jane Colby, Sue Luscombe
14:35 Question and answer time chaired by Charles Shepherd
15:30 to 16:10 Tea break in dining hall
cutting and distribution of OMEGA Birthday cake
time to chat or rest
view Wolfson harbour and grounds (weather and energy permitting)
16:10 Auditorium: Dr Karl Morten will talk about mitochondrial research in Oxfordshire relevant to ME/CFS
16:30 Second question and answer time chaired by Charles Shepherd
17:00 Rest in quiet room for those who would like to.
18:00 Vacate Wolfson College