Journal of IiMER RESEARCH – COLLABORATION Research News from Fane Mensah Fane Mensah is funded by Invest in ME Research for B-cell research [The potential role of B cells and their products in ME/CFS Patients] Collaboration with Christopher Armstrong As part of our Solve ME/CFS Initiative Ramsay award winning collaboration, Christopher Armstrong from the Bio21 Institute (Melbourne University, Australia) came over to work with us at UCL for one month. A quick flashback to June 2016, at the 6th Invest in ME Research International Biomedical Research into ME Colloquium (#BRMEC6) meeting in London where Chris and I met. We were the two youngest scientists at the meeting to give a presentation about our research. It would not have been the first thing we would have in common! Straight after our presentations we started to talk about each other’s experiments and found out that the two completely different fields we were working in (Immunology and Metabolomics) could be complementary. It is well known that immune issues have often been associated with ME/CFS (B cells, NK cells T cells etc.). More recently, different groups, including Christopher and his colleagues have studied changes in the metabolic profile in ME/CFS patients. Their data is very promising and consistent which supports a possible role in this condition. Following some bonding drinks after the conference, Christopher visited us (myself and Dr. Cambridge) the next week at UCL where we laid the base for our collaboration. After Christopher returned to Australia, and several (late and early) Skype meetings we put together a grant application for the Solve ME/CFS www.investinme.org Initiative Ramsay award which is an award that supports (young) scientists from different fields committed to ME/CFS research. This award gives them the opportunity to lay the basis for more substantial collaborative research projects. The next generation scientists: BSc student internship at UCL With the support of the Invest in ME Research charity, we were very fortunate to have Isabelle de Rooij visiting our laboratory for a 5-month internship. Isabelle is a BSc student from Hoge school Rotterdam in the Netherlands (my old University) undertaking the Bachelor of Science course in biology and medical laboratory sciences. As tipped for the best student in her year, we had big expectations from here and she did not disappoint us! During her internship, she not only learned Page 18 of 82
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