Announcing OMF's First ME/CFS Clinical Trial!

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Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS) Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), Fibromyalgia Leading Research. Delivering Hope.Open Medicine Foundation® Canada

Driving research of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS),
Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), Fibromyalgia and Long COVID.

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A Moment of Gratitude

Today, we want to extend a special thanks to OMF Ambassador Karin Alvtegen, one of Scandinavia’s most widely read and appreciated authors.Karin’s post on her Facebook page about her ongoing battle with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS) has already raised more than $4,500 for OMF to support groundbreaking ME/CFS research!

Karin has been sharing her ME / CFS story as part of #FlashBackFridayOMF. This series highlights the active, vibrant, successful lives patients lead before ME / CFS forces them into a more limited existence.

In 2013, Karin came down with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS) and has been severely ill. She has since become an active supporter of OMF. She describes her struggle finding appropriate medical care in Sweden, and the significant impact the disease has had on her life.

Karin also observes, “There are around 20,000 of us sick with ME in Sweden, from mild to very seriously affected. Adults, young people, and children. Only a fraction of us receives adequate care and help. Please contribute to the ME research at Open Medicine Foundation.”

Although Karin can no longer write, she has the support of the entire ME / CFS community. We’d like to sincerely thank Karin for using her powerful voice to raise awareness of just how much ME / CFS patients lose to this illness and to demonstrate the importance of funding research so patients can return to their healthy lives.

We are so grateful for the work of our international team of OMF Ambassadors like Karin Alvtegen, American actress Amy Carlson, Scottish musician, writer and filmmaker,  Stuart Murdoch, and Canadian performer, producer, and disability advocate, Jacqueline Ko.

Together, they are leveraging their accomplishments and profiles to help OMF raise awareness of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS) and attract the resources required to win this fight!

Won’t You Join Them?

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Microvesicles and viral sequencing
Microvesicles are a type of extracellular vesicle that is released from the cell membrane. Vesicles are small, fluid-filled sacs or vacuoles within the body. Sequencing is a technique used to determine the exact sequence of bases (A, C, G, and T) in a DNA (or viral) molecule.
NMR Metabolomics
NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) is an instrument/tool used to perform metabolic studies, metabolic profiling, and metabolomics in biofluids and tissues for more than 40 years using magnetic fields. There is a very close connection between metabolic measurements and NMR. This connection has flourished because of NMR’s many unique strengths for characterizing complex mixtures’ chemical composition.
Proteomics
The large-scale study of proteins, which are large, complex molecules that are required for structure, function, and regulation of the human body's tissues and organs.
Immune cell profiling
The immune system has many important regulatory roles in disease development and progression. Given the emergence of effective immune therapies, reliable predictors of response are needed. Immune cell profiling determines response by evaluating immune cell populations from treated and untreated samples. For our purposes, we will evaluate the white blood cell response to the viral infection using a process called “Cytof.”
Leukocyte Genomics
A leukocyte is a colorless cell circulating in the blood and body fluids and is involved in counteracting foreign substances and disease. A genome is all genetic material of an organism. Genomics is a biology field focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. Therefore, leukocyte genomics is the study of all genetic material of leukocytes.
Metabolomics
Metabolomics is a way to study metabolism – that is, through measuring amounts of the metabolites (small molecules) produced by our bodies as we convert food into energy and other molecules that our cells need to survive. Metabolomics technology is ‘large-scale,’ meaning that several thousand metabolites can be measured from a single sample of e.g., blood or urine.
Micro RNA
Cells use Micro RNA to control whether a particular gene is making too much, too little or the normal amount of its protein at a particular time.
Autoantibodies
Antibodies that react with self-molecules and that occur in healthy individuals and are referred to as natural antibodies or autoantibodies.
Extracellular DNA for viral reactivation and Mitochondrial DNA
exDNA (extracellular DNA), exDNA is often secreted actively and is used to perform several tasks, thereby offering an attractive target or tool for biotechnological, medical, environmental, and general microbiological applications. Viruses are intracellular parasites that rely to a significant extent on the host cell for replication. Viral reactivation occurs when an active replication of the viral genome results in a lytic (degradation of the cell) infection characterized by the release of new progeny (descendant) virus particles.