Journal of IiME Volume 7 Issue 1 environmental exposures have been associated as triggering these changes.” - UK Medical Research Council This developing recognition of the real disease in ME needs to be backed up with an appropriate response. The overwhelming need is for research - and essentially biomedical research into ME. We believe International collaboration is a necessity for research into ME. If we are seriously to have a way forward for proper research into ME then we need not just adequate funding, but correctly defined cohorts, standardisation on diagnostic criteria and a collaborative of researchers who will not blur science with politics. Research into ME needs a strategic approach - but it may be destined to fail completely by attempting to establish the way forward on foundations which include so much of what has been wrong in the past. So we need - to establish homogeneous research cohorts to adopt and endorse the latest ICC or CCC criteria for ME - for research and for diagnosis to separate research into fatigue and chronic fatigue from ME to establish transparent peer reviewing by professionals with the relevant experience and background For IiME our objectives over the next couple of years will be to attempt to fund more biomedical research using diagnostic criteria that are as good as we have in the current day. We will attempt to improve education of healthcare staff by facilitating training events with knowledgeable and experienced ME clinicians providing help, advice and education to GPs, nurses, researchers and patients. We will organise research meetings to bring the best researchers together. We will collaborate with those who are genuinely interested in progress in researching and treating and curing ME. This year we would also like to thank the Edward P. Evans Foundation for contributing to the costs of the conference. The Foundation is also a major funder of ME research with recent awards to OMI Merit and Griffith University showing a Invest in ME (Charity Nr. 1114035) www.investinme.org Page 6 of 36 (May 2013) We will support those initiatives which promise to make real progress. Our approach is to try to get a strategic research programme started here in the UK and build collaborations with trusted clinicians and researchers so that patients can get tested as part of research rather than having to spend vast amounts of money travelling to see doctors abroad. We need clinical trials to get evidence for treatments that work. We need better education about ME for healthcare staff. We need additional and long-term funding for biomedical research into ME. At our IIMEC8 conference we focus on ME now becoming a mainstream research area. We have representatives from most of the main biomedical research initiatives now occurring throughout the world. Our foundation biomedical research project will begin this year at a leading UK university. We are actively in discussion with a number of other projects and welcome the chance to work with other groups interested in biomedical research into ME. SPONSORS A word of thanks to the Irish ME Trust who, yet again, will be sponsoring one of the speakers to the conference. IMET have been a constant friend and supporter of IiME, and of ME patients. They have funded major research into ME and have been a leading member in the European ME Alliance.
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