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End ME/CFS Project

With funding from the Open Medicine Foundation Canada (OMFCA), OMF scientific advisory board director, world-renowned geneticist Ronald W. Davis, PhD, has brought together world-renowned experts for a bold international collaborative research project coined “The End ME/CFS Project”.

The goal for this project is to develop diagnostic tools, deliver treatments, and ultimately find a cure and prevention for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS).

At the direction of Dr. Davis and OMF’s Scientific Advisory Board, OMF Canada is supporting two ME/CFS Collaborative Research Centres. Dr. Davis leads the Centre at Stanford University. Ronald G. Tompkins, MD, ScD, and Wenzhong Xiao, PhD, co-direct the collaboration at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard affiliated hospitals. A vital part of the End ME/CFS project is to financially support goal-directed research centres that work collaboratively with each other and the global research community of scientists and clinicians. The strategy is to constantly remain focused on fast-tracking research so that diagnosis, treatments, and a cure can be available to patients as soon as possible. This method for funding a research network ensures the persistence of a long-term, committed and multi-pronged research initiative, and maximizes the prospects for efficacious results in a timely manner.

Dr. Davis’s vision is to openly share data, as was done in the Human Genome Project, so as to speed the pace of research and minimize the need for researchers to collect data that has already been collected. To that end, an ME/CFS Data Centre has been established at Stanford that is open to all researchers. Much of the data from the Stanford Collaborative Research Centre is already available, and data from the other Centres will be added. Other researchers are also welcomed to add their data. Collectively, researchers from all over the world are building a repository of data using innovative analytical techniques and multi-omics platforms (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, etc.). Currently, this data is being used by researchers worldwide and has already begun informing the development of hypotheses, ideas for diagnostic technologies, and possible clinical trials.

Millions are needed annually to support the End ME/CFS Project. Dr. Davis estimates that $20 million per year would be needed so that funding was not the limiting factor for progress. Consequently, OMFCA has set aggressive goals to raise funds from grants and donations. Join the campaign to end ME/CFS by donating, ask your friends, family, and peers to donate to this ground-breaking research.