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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Advancing Long COVID & ME/CFS Research: OMF Collaborative Centers Receive Funding from Patent Led Research Collaborative (PLCRC)

We were pleased to receive funding from PLRC for the following studies:

Characterizing non-restorative sleep in post-viral disease to advance intervention innovations
Drs. Janet Mullington, Robert Thomas, Larissa Engert, Samuel Frank, Monika Haack, Jason Maley, Recep Ozdemir, Haoqi Sun, Alicia Stokes, John Torous, and Brandon M. Westover – Harvard Medical School and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Ronald G. Tompkins Harvard ME/CFS Collaboration

The goal of this project is to characterize several features of sleep regulation in ME/CFS and Long COVID compared with age and sex matched healthy sleep controls. The study will look at four primary components: 1) sleep-circadian dysfunction; 2) how immune function, specifically specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs), are changed in relation to sleep dysfunction; 3) brain electrical activity; and 4) mechanisms of state-boundary control and neurodegenerative diseases.

Systems Biology Approaches to Uncovering Disease Mechanism and Drug Repurposing for Long COVID
Dr. Wenzhong Xiao – Massachusetts General Hospital and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Computational Research Center for Complex Diseases

This project will use deep machine learning and network medicine to parse through clinical information, research findings, and multi-omics data of Long COVID, ME/CFS, and related diseases with the collective knowledge-base of drugs, diseases, genes, and symptoms to discover disease gene modules, and identify potential drugs as candidates for repurposing for these illnesses.

Multi-omic approAches to Solve post-Acute COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 Syndrome
Prof. Alain Moreau – Université de Montréal and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported ME/CFS Collaborative Center at CHU Sainte-Justine/Université de Montréal; Prof. Jonas Bergquist –the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported ME/CFS Collaboration at Uppsala University; Dr. Christopher Armstrong – Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration; Dr. Wenzhong Xiao – Harvard University and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Computational Research Center for Complex Diseases; Dr. Dawei Li – Florida Atlantic University; and Dr. Tse Man Sze – Université de Montréal

This project hypothesizes that Long COVID, and ME/CFS after COVID, is the result of a broad molecular-level reorganization occurring primarily at the epigenetic level. The study aims to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of long-term sequelae following a SARS-CoV-2 infection, by looking at 4 specific aims: 1) Global expression profiling of circulating microRNAs, 2) Global DNA methylation profiling, 3) Global proteomic plasma profiling, and 4) Global metabolomic plasma and urine profiling.

 

 

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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.