JOURNAL OF IIMER May 2026 Session 8: Biomarker Discovery and Emerging Research Approaches One of the most pressing needs in ME research is the development of objective, validated biomarkers - measurable biological indicators that can confirm diagnosis, stratify patients and track response to treatment. Progress in this area is now accelerating. But this session goes beyond biomarkers in the conventional sense, encompassing emerging research directions and novel therapeutic hypotheses that may shape the field in the years ahead. The session is moderated by Professor Jonas Bergquist, Full Chair in Analytical Chemistry and Neurochemistry at Uppsala University in Sweden, with a background spanning clinical neuroscience, analytical chemistry and ME research across more than two decades. Dr Jesper Mehlsen, co-chair of EMERG and a specialist in autonomic nervous system dysfunction with over 35 years of clinical and research experience, will present on objective tools for diagnosing autonomic dysfunction in ME - the tilt-test, Valsalva Manoeuvre, Heart Rate Variability and the COMPASS-31 questionnaire. These approaches offer a means of characterising the autonomic abnormalities consistently reported in ME patients and may contribute to validated diagnostic criteria. Professor Ronald W. Davis, Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center and a world-recognised figure in the development of genomic and biotechnological methodologies, has in recent years dedicated substantial effort to ME research. His team have developed novel nanotechnology-based diagnostic tools, including a nanoelectronics assay that has attracted considerable international attention as a potential objective test for the disease. His presentation addresses oxidative stress in ME/CFS and Long COVID - a domain of growing significance as researchers seek to characterise the metabolic and mitochondrial disturbances that may underlie the illness - and reflects the session's ambition to pursue biomarker discovery through the most advanced technological means available. Dr Alexandre Akoulitchev of Oxford BioDynamics and Professor Dmitry Pshezhetskiy of the University of East Anglia will present on a potentially transformative development: the application of EpiSwitch 3D genomic profiling to ME. Their collaborative work, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine in 2025, identified a unique and reproducible pattern of three-dimensional chromatin architecture in ME patients absent in healthy controls, achieving diagnostic accuracy of 96% in an initial cohort - offering the prospect of the first reliable blood-based diagnostic test for the disease. The Carding Group at the Quadram Institute will present on bacterial extracellular vesicle research and the pathways and mediators of the gut-microbiome-brain axis - exploring how signals from gut microbes transmitted via extracellular vesicles may influence brain function and immune responses in ME. Invest in ME Research Page 29 of 35
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