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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Focus Statement

Open Medicine Foundation Canada envisions improved health care for patients suffering
from chronic complex diseases with collaboration between the patients, clinicians, and
researchers. 

Mission Statement

Open Medicine Foundation Canada’s mission is to support medical and clinical research, including the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

OMF Canada Board of Directors

Meet Open Medicine Foundation Canada’s Board of Directors who each bring a special skill to help advance the mission of OMF Canada. 

Linda Tannenbaum, portrait

Linda Tannenbaum

Founder & President
The inception of Open Medicine Foundation (OMF) traces back to the personal journey of its founder, Linda Tannenbaum. As OMF's President and CEO, Linda's motivation was deeply personal; her daughter, at the age of 16, was struck by ME/CFS, a diagnosis that came without the prospect of diagnostic tests or viable treatments. Confronted with the painful reality of her daughter's diminished quality of life, Linda was propelled into action. Her pursuit for answers revealed a stark void in collaborative and transparent research, as well as funding for ME/CFS and related chronic, complex diseases. Determined to bridge this gap, Linda established OMF in 2012, with a vision to catalyze large-scale research efforts aimed at creating diagnostic tools, effective treatments, and ultimately, prevention methodologies for these conditions. Linda's professional background as a clinical laboratory scientist, holding a bacteriology degree from UCLA, and her experience managing a clinical laboratory for over 20 years, have all converged to fuel her current mission. With unwavering dedication, Linda Tannenbaum now channels her expertise and passion into spearheading the quest to find a cure for chronic complex diseases, enhance patient care, and restore the lives of millions affected by these conditions.
Kimberly Hicks, portrait

Kimberly Hicks

Treasurer
Ms. Hicks has worked with OMF as a board member since 2014, has served in an interim capacity as the CFO/COO, and has joined the team full-time. She is a C-suite Finance industry veteran with over 25 years of leadership, business transformation, business development/sales, merger integrations, and major strategic initiative experience across private and public sectors, and international settings. In the past few years she has transitioned to Health Tech and Healthcare, and has a keen interest and passion for the use of technology to solve big healthcare problems. Ms. Hicks holds an MA in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from St. Mary’s University and a BA in Psychology from The University of Texas. Ms. Hicks holds an MA in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from St. Mary’s University and a BA in Psychology from The University of Texas.
Lynn LaMothe, portrait

Lynn LaMothe

Secretary
Lynn LaMothe, now retired, worked as a Distribution Manager for Procter and Gamble Cellulose Inc., and later as a District Manager for Johnson and Johnson Consumer Goods, responsible for the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. While working for Procter and Gamble, Lynn managed the logistics for the pulp and paper product, which entailed the oversight of a $25,000.000.00 freight budget. During her time at Johnson and Johnson, Lynn worked to train up a sales team, manage key corporate accounts and grow her divisions sales targets. Lynn’s strengths lie in her ability to motivate people and grow a cooperative work environment. Her belief is that a well supported and respected team is a key component to any successful business model. Outside of work, Lynn enjoyed helping new Immigrants get settled in her city. For the past many years, Lynn has dedicated her time to raising her 2 children. She currently lives in Victoria, B.C. with her husband and their daughter, who suffers with ME. She is excited to be part of a Canadian team working to find a cure for ME.
Brent Handel​, headshot

Brent Handel

Brent Handel has been a lawyer for over 30 years and practices in the area of Civil Litigation and Insurance Law. He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel (Q.C.) on December 30, 2011. This honorary title is intended to recognize a lawyer’s achievement and standing in the legal profession for quality work, professional integrity, and outstanding contribution to the legal profession and to the community. Mr. Handel is a past Chairman of the Canada Pension Plan Review Tribunal – Disability Claims from 2006 to 2009. The Canada Pension Plan Review Tribunal is a quasi-judicial tribunal which hears appeals from citizens who have been denied permanent disability benefits by the Government of Canada. Mr. Handel is a past President of the Central Alberta Bar Society from 2011 to 2013 and an instructor for the Legal Education Society of Alberta, the continuing education arm of the Law Society of Alberta. Mr. Handel has taught a business law course on a part-time basis for many years to university students at Red Deer University.
Headshot of Eleonor Stein

Eleonor Stein

Dr. Eleanor Stein MD FRCP(C) graduated from medical school at the University of Alberta in 1987. She completed her psychiatry residency in 1992 and a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry in 1993. The course of her career in academic medicine took a turn when she developed myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and environmental sensitivities in 1989 during her psychiatry residency. Given the lack of information and health services for people with these conditions, she made the decision in 2000 to focus her practice on these chronic complex diseases. Since then, she has worked closely with thousands of patients integrating conventional and integrative approaches to help them improve their health and function. She is acknowledged as one of the leading clinicians in the field worldwide and has spoken nationally and internationally.

Consent management

Consent Preferences

Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) Form 

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.