Human geneticist Mario Capecchi, who won Nobel Prize in 2007, and 1962 Nobel Laureate James Watson – who worked with Crick and Wilkins in Cambridge to unravel the structure of DNA – have both joined the Scientific Advisory Board of the US-based Open Medicine Foundation, set up to power-drive research into neuro-immune diseases including chronic fatigue syndrome, ME, Fibromyalgia, Lyme Disease and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The eight-member board, chaired by Professor Ronald W Davis, also includes Dr Andreas Kogelnik, founder and director of the Open Medicine Institute which held an invitation-only scientific meeting in New York two years ago attended by Dr Charles Shepherd, medical adviser to the ME Association.