Journal of IiMER May 2025 Rowan Gardner, Precision Life, UK IIMEC17: Precision diagnostic tests and personalised treatments for ME and Long COVID Rowan Gardner is Co-founder and Chief Business & Investment Officer at PrecisionLife, a UK-based precision medicine company focused on complex chronic diseases such as ME/CFS and Long COVID. With over 30 years of experience applying computational methods to life science and patient data, she specialises in identifying mechanistically defined patient subgroups to enable more targeted diagnostics and personalised treatments. Rowan holds a Master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and has played key roles in pioneering life science ventures, including Oxford Molecular Group and collaborations with CERN on cloud computing in healthcare. She is also an independent board member at Digital Health and Care Wales, contributing to the digital transformation of NHS services. At the Invest in ME Conference, Rowan will present an update on PrecisionLife’s collaborative MetX study with the Metrodora Institute, which has achieved the first replicated genetic associations in both ME and Long COVID, confirming key genetic risk factors across diverse populations. She will discuss how these findings are being used to provide participants with detailed reports on disease mechanisms, support the development of novel diagnostic tools and targeted therapies, and design more effective clinical trials. Rowan will highlight how PrecisionLife’s advanced data analytics are accelerating the development of precision medicine approaches for ME/CFS and Long COVID, aiming to improve patient stratification, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes. Jonas Bergquist, Uppsala University, Sweden IIMEC17: Multi-Omic Biomarker Discovery for Diagnosis and Disease Mechanisms in ME/CFS Professor Jonas Bergquist, MD, PhD, is a Full Chair Professor in Analytical Chemistry and Neurochemistry at Uppsala University, Sweden, where he directs the Proteomics and Metabolomics platforms. He also holds adjunct and visiting professorships at the University of Utah, Binzhou Medical University in China, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. His research group focuses on developing advanced analytical tools for molecular diagnostics and biomarker discovery, particularly in cerebrospinal fluid and other complex biological samples. Professor Bergquist’s work aims to better understand neuroimmunological involvement in diseases such as ME/CFS by applying proteomics and metabolomics techniques. Since 2019, he has led a clinical collaborative research centre in Uppsala dedicated to ME, working in partnership with institutions including Harvard Medical School, Stanford University, Montreal University, and Melbourne University. His multidisciplinary approach integrates molecular data with clinical insights to identify biomarkers and explore disease mechanisms, including neuroinflammation Invest in ME Research Page 35 of 43
37 Publizr Home