NIH will hold a research conference: “Advancing ME/CFS Research Identifying Targets for Intervention and Learning from Long COVID”

[SWAlexander]

“Present the state of the science of ME/CFS research and identify targets for potential interventions that have arisen from the literature and clinical evidence from ME/CFS and Long COVID observations. Audience is expected to be scientists, clinicians, patients and other ME/CFS stakeholders. The conference will be webcast and publicly available.”
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Each of these working groups are holding video conferences to present information and gather feedback. See NIH ME/CFS EVENTS page for details.

The working groups cover the following topics:

• Nervous System
• Immune System
• Metabolism
• Genomics/Genetic Susceptibilities
• Chronic Infections
• Physiology
• Less Studied Pathologies
• Circulation

Some of the working groups have already met. Videos of these webinars are available HERE.
https://colleensteckelmeiccinfo.sub...4r05q9CLtQdbMNEsaT8721HJpUBNpf3D7qPFUsB7Ud0sE

 

[Wishful]

Is there enough new knowledge to be worth a research conference? Will it just be a bunch of people reporting that their theory might kinda sorta maybe explain part of ME, with evidence that supports it if you don't look too closely? Potential interventions would be based on those inadequately supported theories?

I'm just guessing that the conference will be paid for by ME R&D funds, which then won't be available for actual research. I expect that everything that will be covered could otherwise be placed on a web page, with links to the actual research papers, at minimal cost. How much ME R&D funding will go to pay for booze?

 

[Osaca]

Is there enough new knowledge to be worth a research conference? Will it just be a bunch of people reporting that their theory might kinda sorta maybe explain part of ME, with evidence that supports it if you don't look too closely? Potential interventions would be based on those inadequately supported theories?

I'm just guessing that the conference will be paid for by ME R&D funds, which then won't be available for actual research. I expect that everything that will be covered could otherwise be placed on a web page, with links to the actual research papers, at minimal cost. How much ME R&D funding will go to pay for booze?

Conferences, Seminars and workshops are extremely crucial for any field of research even if there have been no breakthroughs. If you want to get young researchers, Phd's and Postdocs interested in a field of study they are even necessary and without those a field will never advance. At the grand scheme of things such conferences are well worth their costs, usually the budget is also independent of R&D funds (and this conference is certainly not one of the more fancy conferences).

For this conference "A boxed lunch will be provided to attendees on December 12 and 13 by the Open Medicine Foundation (no Federal Funds were used to purchase food/drink for this meeting)." You can also find the agenda of this conference here.