XMRV abstracts from 15th International Conference on Human Retroviruses

[beike]

I think you missed the sarcasm beike
Good defense of XMRV research though...

lol... got a little carried away. oops.

 

[alex3619]

Absurdium

Exercise can cure ME/CFS. It doesn't matter how sick you are. Since exercise makes you sicker, every little bit will make you sicker faster. As you become totally disabled, just staying alive will be like infinite effort. If exercise can cure, then infinite effort will cure instantly. So the way to be cured is to exercise until you are totally incapacited.

Disclaimer: Actual results may vary. The results claimed in this article are for hypothetical patients with a hypothetical diagnosis. Please do not try this at home. Please pay lots of money to one of our consultants. :innocent1:

 

[heapsreal]

my xmrv gets better with moderate 5km runs but it seems to worsen when i knock out the 42km marathon for some strange reason, maybe need to increase my prozac dose???????????????
LMAO!!

 

[toddm1960]

My we are a sarcasic bunch aren't we..... It's feels good to get some good news.:victory:

 

[Francelle]

Perhaps we should now turn our attention to laughter!

Laughter arising from humour posted on this board may actually cause another type of relapse - God forbid we may get carried away and actually throw our prozac/anti depressants out the window believing we don't need them anymore......and then where would we be? So a degree of gravity and far less levity is mandated at all times......please!

 

[Rrrr]

can someone go down the list and and mention which studies they deem negative and which positive?

also, will all these study authors be present?

 

[eric_s]

What is it that you would call positive? A study finding XMRV in ME/CFS? Some of those studies are about animals or lab experiments with XMRV in cells outside of the human body, so i don't know how one could call them positive or negative.

I think this study http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A234 is a study that found XMRV in cases of ME/CFS and probably this one too, in a way http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A230.

I guess this one will be negative, at least as far as ME/CFS is concerned http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A238.

But even if there were only one or two "ME/CFS positive studies" in there, most seem very interesting to me.

 

[Cort]

This is my shot

This is the BIG ONE

Human infection or lab artifact: will the real XMRV please stand up? (Silverman)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A241

Silverman will apparently report whether or not his lab, which got the WPI interested in XMRV, is contaminated...Since he found that his lab had grown the 22RVI cell line he apparently closed it down and has been figuring out whats going on...real infection or human artifact........Since he is a direct link to the WPI - this is will be an important presentation...

Restricted infection of xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus in human lymphoid tissue
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A208 -XMLV- Related virus?? this study will show that the immune system restricts the virus from infecting some cells but not others.

Heme oxygenase-1 activation inhibits XMRV pathogenesis and carcinogenesis in prostate cancer cells
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A218 - This hurts the idea that XMRV contributes to prostate cancer

XMRV replicates preferentially in mucosal sites in vivo: Relevance to XMRV transmission?
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A219 - this will show that XMRV could be transmitted by kissing at the very least

A prototype RT-PCR assay for detection of XMRV in multiple human sample types
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A220 - more diagnostic breakthroughs - notice that his works in SEVERAL tissues

Immune correlates of XMRV infection (Mikovits)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A221 - the immune signature we've been talking about

Prevalence of XMRV in blood donors, HTLV and HIV cohorts
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A222 - your guess is as good as mine...it has not shown up in HIV yet.

Cell line tropism and replication of XMRV
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A225 - what cells XMRV can grow in is an important topic

Independent evolution of intracellular transposons from exogenous IAP-related retroviruses in a broad range of mammalian species
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A226 - ???????????

Development of XMRV producing B Cell lines from lymphomas from patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Mikovits)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A230 - XMRV can grow in B-cells...a big development if XMRV is validated in CFS

Multi-laboratory evaluations of XMRV nucleic acid detection assays (Mikovits, Coffin, Ruscetti, Switzer, etc)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A231 - this sounds like a BWG study...

Serologic and PCR testing of persons with chronic fatigue syndrome in the United States shows no association with xenotropic or polytropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (Switzer)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A232 - an old study??

Detection of MLV-like gag sequences in blood samples from a New York state CFS cohort
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A234 - a POSITIVE STUDY! Possibly similar to Lo et al - but is this the Hansen/Bell study?

Murine leukemia viruses (MuLV) and Xenotropic MuLV-related viruses exhibit inter-tropic complex recombination patterns
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A235 - they combine together forming new combinations...

 

[Esther12]

lol - surely it's a bit cruel to put Silverman on last if he's going to tell them they've all been wasting their time. If they'd put him on first they could have just all gone out to get drunk, rather than busily devote themselves to trying to understand this mysterious virus.

 

[eric_s]

Development of XMRV producing B Cell lines from lymphomas from patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Mikovits)
http://www.retrovirology.com/content/8/S1/A230 - XMRV can grow in B-cells...a big development if XMRV is validated in CFS

I understood this one differently, but i might be totally wrong. Doesn't it mean that they have developped cell lines that already have XMRV in them, from the start? So that the XMRV was already in there, in the patient?

 

[Cort]

I understood this one differently, but i might be totally wrong. Doesn't it mean that they have developped cell lines that already have XMRV in them, from the start? So that the XMRV was already in there, in the patient?

I can see that....I like your take better actually.....

 

[eric_s]

The problem is that i don't know wheter it's correct like this or not... i hope somebody can help clear this up.

 

[currer]

Mikovits abstract for the New York Academy of Sciences talk was about the SPONTANEOUS development of immortalised XMRV producing B cells from patients.

I understand this to mean that some XMRV infected patients cells (B cells) are changed into cancerous cells by the XMRV infection and will replicate in an uncontrolled fashion inside and outside the body (in cell lines).
(These are naturally infected patients, not experimental infections.)

This is what you would expect if XMRV is capable of causing lymphomas in some CFS patients.
Check out Dr. Snydermans blog at Deckoff-Jones blogspot.

This is the assumption he is basing his (so far successful) treatment for CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic leukaemia) on and the reason he is using antiretrovirals for this cancer. He is assuming that he is infected with XMRV and this is causing his leukaemia. He is treating his leukaemia by stopping the XMRV with antiretrovirals. I think ha says he tested positive for XMRV.

Check out the thread XMRV and Blood Supply webinar tuesday March 29.

 

[eric_s]

Thanks for that info, Currer. In the meantime i've asked somebody on ME/CFS Forums and she said the same, that XMRV is in this cell line from the start. I can't guarantee it's correct, but i guess it's like that. Don't feel like reading up about it now.

 

[Dorothy]

The program for the conference is available here:


http://htlv2011.regaweb.med.kuleuven.be/sites/default/files/program-20110526.pdf


It looks like many XMRV presentations will be on the afternoon of June 6, with Switzer starting off, then Silverman, and Ruscetti is a few names further down. Then on the 7th there will be round table discussions - one group is chaired by William Switzer and features Judy Mikovits, Robert Silverman, Mirdad Kazanji (who is he?) and Maureen Hanson as discussion participants. The presentations being discussed include Maureen Hanson's study ("MLV-like gag sequences from a New York State cohort").


I recently re-watched Dr. Bell's April talk to the Massachusetts CFIDS Association - he discussed XMRV in the Q&A session

http://www.masscfids.org/videofiles/BellApril2011/Bell Questions.html


He did say that with regard to the Hanson study, "work is continuing" but that Dr. Hanson had decided not to publish their initial results and was going to look more carefully at all the samples to resolve the contamination vs. infection issues (due to the ongoing XMRV controversy). So Hanson's presentation might not be a new study, but the data would be stronger due to having been double checked and scrutinized.


It drives me crazy to see that the NCI is declaring that there's "proof" that XMRV is just a contaminant, when research is still ongoing. Looking at this International Conference program, it appears that the Coffin lid has been slammed a bit too soon (pun intended).

 

[Jemal]

They are indeed awefully interested in something that many are branding as contamination

 

[eric_s]

Thanks Dorothy. It's the first time i see this video. Listen to what he says from 5:30 to around 6:20. Is he giving some hints here? Or am i misunderstanding him?

I'm all for letting "the smart people" figure it out, the only problem is that some "smart people" now act as if they want to stop that process.

 

[eric_s]

Also 6:50 to 7:50 and 16:00 to 16:10. But he says he's wrong around 100% of the time, so i guess we have to be careful nevertheless...
It's really worth watching.

 

[Dorothy]

Yes, those sections of the presentation are intensely interesting - Dr. Bell makes a good case for retroviruses as potential causative agents, and I think his statement "once they figure it out this is going to really shake the foundations of medicine...there's something going on here that has eluded detection for all these years but it's very important" is probably more than wishful thinking.

Since Dr. Bell's April 16th talk occurred after the April 7-8 State of the Knowledge meeting during which Coffin suggested we "leave XMRV behind", I'm not sure Coffin, Stoye, etc were included in the "smart people who are still working hard to figure this out" group. I think Bell's "A Team" is a different group of smart people who won't quit till they have some kind of definitive answer - if XMRV doesn't pan out, they'll keep looking at retroviruses and viruses till those foundations of medicine DO get shaken (and those walls built by Stephen Straus and Bill Reeves come tumbling down).


Also, by mid April the Singh study was about to come out and perhaps the results of the Levy paper were also known to people like Dr. Bell - there were certainly rumors going around for a while - so if Dr. Bell didn't know something at least reasonably hopeful, I would think that he wouldn't have expressed so much optimism. His mention of pharmaceutical companies working intently but quietly until their patents get wrapped up seems to hint at something big going on....I hope!


Dr. Bell tends to be overly optimistic, and he's been wrong in the past with his optimism, but I can't help but think that this time, he's going to be right. It sure is a great video - and much better than CBT if one is feeling depressed over the whole research situation.

 

[Bob]

Yes, it's an interesting video isn't it. I've always been sure that there are more people working on XMRV than we are aware of, and more varied research than we are aware of. It takes years to move good science forwards. The zero/zero studies were published in weeks or months. The existing XMRV researchers are working away quietly, making sure that they have a full grasp of the subject before going public. For example, Lo hasn't been sitting around doing nothing for the past few months - he's been expanding his understanding of the subject. Alter and Lo are actively searching for viral integration into human DNA, but that's just one of the things they are doing. They are probably also trying to establish exactly what virus they have discovered, and they are probably also searching for XMRV in their samples.