Dr Charles Shepherd, Hon. Medical Adviser, ME Association.
The ME Association has been actively involved with the ME/CFS Biomedical Partnership in preparation of a major research grant application that will investigate the genetics of ME/CFS.
| **This MEA website survey is closed** |
The ME/CFS Biomedical Partnership: Genetics and Biomarkers is a partnership of researchers, people with ME/CFS, carers and the public.
The partnership will shortly make a grant application to the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research for a very large genetic study into ME/CFS known as a genome-wide association study (GWAS).
The project will be led by Professor Chris Ponting at the University of Edinburgh in partnership with the UK ME/CFS Biobank at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine – where all the basic running costs are provided by the ME Association Ramsay Research Fund.
- The study will
analyse DNA (= genetic material) from the saliva of 20,000 ME/CFS
patients to see whether ME/CFS is partly genetic and if so, what might be
causing the disease. - The study should
help us to increase our understanding of the disease and why it sometimes
occurs in more than one member of a family. - This research
could also help in the discovery of diagnostic biomarkers and drug treatments
that would be worth investigating.
This is an historic opportunity for ME/CFS patients, and the ME Association is looking forward to working with both patients and the research group to help make it a reality.
In the last few days alone there has been a fantastic response to promotions with over 3,000 patients signing up to the initiative!
We will keep you informed of developments as we hear them but if you can vote in our survey it will help us to gauge support for the proposed study.
The ME Association
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