Journal of IiME Volume 9 Issue 1 This year we are also welcoming back Dr John Chia who is the only ME clinician/researcher concentrating on enteroviruses and ME. The late Dr John Richardson did a considerable amount of work into enteroviruses and ME in the UK and his work and legacy has been carried on by Dr Spurr and Professor Malcolm Hooper – who both participate in BRMEC5. We are delighted to welcome some new presenters to the conference proceedings. Professor Ian Charles has taken on leadership of the Institute of Food Research (IFR) in Norwich and we are honoured that he is opening the tenth Invest in ME conference. His track record is impressive and we hope his vision and innovation will help with ME research in the future as the research base for ME at UEA/IFR in Norwich Research Park has enormous potential in finding the cause(s) of ME. The charity first proposed its centre of excellence in 2010 and with the help of the Let’s Do It For ME team of volunteers funds were raised for the foundation research project which began at University of East Anglia and the Institute of Food Research in October 2013. This three year studentship is analysing gut microbiota in ME patients. Daniel Vipond is the PhD student taking on this project under the leadership of Professors Simon Carding and Tom Wileman. The patients are selected from Dr Amolak Bansal’s CFS clinic at Epsom and St Helier hospital. Invest in ME want proper education about ME to begin at medical school and one of the best ways is for medical students to intercalate in their course and play a part in the research projects. So fourth year medical students from the University of East Anglia (UEA), Bharat Harbham and Navena Navaneetharaja are also involved in the IFR/UEA gut microbiota May 2015 research. The charity has for a long while stated the importance of international collaboration and we are pleased that Professor Maureen Hanson enabled Navena to spend over three months at Cornell University in Itacha USA to learn about their gut microbiota research. Meanwhile Bharat is currently working intensely with Professor Angela Vincent in her laboratory at Oxford University. This is the essence of the IiME approach to research. Finding the cause, working in collaboration, using opportunities for international collaboration, bringing new expertise into studying ME and facilitating the education of healthcare staff. At the 2012 conference we stated that we were working on an attempt to set up a rituximab clinical trial. Following our Biomedical Research into ME Colloquium 3 in London in 2013 we made rapid progress with our partners UCL. ●● ● “The charity has for a long while stated the importance of international collaboration…” ●● ● Dr Bansal along with Dr Saul Berkowitz UCLH is also involved in this, the second IiME funded project which is looking at B cell biology in ME patients as the foundation for a clinical trial of rituximab. This work is being performed by Fane Mensah under the expert leadership of Dr Jo Cambridge. Professor Jonathan Edwards is also involved as an advisor. All of the students involved with IiME funded research projects will be in a panel discussion at the conference – satisfying a long held objective to highlight the next generation of researchers at our conference. Also being presented in the IiME London research meetings this year is fascinating research from new speakers to the IIME conference/colloquium. Markers to aid in diagnostics may be found from the visual research performed by Dr Claire Hutchinson and her team. Dr Neil Harrison’s work on immune brain communication is very relevant Invest in ME (Charity Nr. 1114035) www.investinme.org Page 5 of 57
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