Journal of IiMER BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH into ME Building a Future for Research into ME The Corridor Conference organised in London by IiMER was flowed with the impressive and forward-thinking collaboration with the Alison Hunter Memorial Foundation of Australia to form BRMEC2 – the two-day Clinical Autoimmunity Working Group CAWG) research group which met in London the next year and before the IIMEC7 conference. This became our way of making rapid progress in biomedical research into ME. We attract experts from other disciplines to bring their expertise and skills to bear on this disease. By doing this we can bypass the negativity and misinformation that has pervaded the perception of ME for a generation and influenced the establishment research bodies – and instead focus on proper science. The Invest in ME Research Biomedical Research into ME Colloquiums are research meetings organised by the charity to encourage biomedical research into ME and international collaboration amongst researchers. This is one of the main objectives of the charity. Invest in ME Research began arranging biomedical research conferences in our first year and have continued them ever since - mostly funded by the charity but with help from some wonderful supporters and some good friends. The Invest in ME Research International Biomedical Research into ME Colloquiums began as a way of bringing together researchers from around the world in a roundtable discussion of ME research and ideas. They are designed to encourage collaboration and sharing of experience and to bring in new ideas and knowledge from outside the field of ME. A small charity with a BIG cause can www.investinme.org achieve this. Over the years this has broadened into sharing of experiences, data and plans for future research. A culmination of much of this effort was the initiative to bring European researchers together to form The European ME Research Group (EMERG) which had an inaugural meeting in October 2015 in London to set up a strategy of European collaboration in ME research. There is a basis now for creating a strategy of high-quality international biomedical research - something that has been lacking in the past. This will hold great promise of finding funding opportunities and raising awareness of biomedical research into ME. As stated, our aim with the annual CPDaccredited research colloquiums has also been to introduce new researchers into the field of ME research, to gain new insights into the disease and enhance the strategy of research we are building. The Invest in ME Research colloquiums have spawned a number of positive initiatives over the years and are the most successful research meetings for forming new research initiatives for ME with multiple collaborative initiatives being formed across continents. We have proven that high-quality biomedical research can be initiated in an international, collaborative environment and we salute all those researchers who continue to participate and work with us for the benefit of all people with ME and their families. We will continue to work together to facilitate the best hopes to make progress in finding the cause(s) of and treatments for this disease. Page 9 of 82 COLLOQUIUM
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