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Lipkin and Hornig ME/CFS Monster Study: Microbes, Immunity & Complex Data

aimossy

aimossy

Senior Member
Messages
1,106
Copying from the Microbe Discovery Project.

Great news: A big $100,000 donation & we have some total updates!





An amazingly generous $100,000 anonymous donation has come through!

This is wonderful news and such a fantastic start! We are now up to 148 donations and a total of $112,651 for this critical and hugely thorough study into ME/CFS by Dr. Ian Lipkin and Dr. Mady Hornig at Columbia University Center for Infection and Immunity!

This massive study, with well characterized patients and controls includes investigating the microbiome (viruses, fungi, bacteria), pathogens, metabolomics, proteomics, immunology, genetics and epigenetics – all on the same patients. This is a unique chance to solidify findings, find out more and see correlations across research areas. It is an in-depth study that is also looking at the big picture, many research papers and hypothesis would be generated from this work which covers critical areas of research need for ME/CFS.

The study is designed to home in on ME/CFS – please read about the whole research study HERE!

Imagine if we reached thousands of donations! Here are some of our website stats for you. We have had 15,259 visits to the website generally and 3,680 specific views of the information about the study, some of these will have been repeated views. Please help us increase these viewing numbers along with numbers of donations – you can read how you can do this as well as find other ways to help HERE!

It is so great to be able to drop such a chunk lower on the COUNTDOWN TICKER, that Columbia CII and the community are working to get all the way down to zero! Thank you so much for all these wonderful donations!



 
Simon

Simon

Senior Member
Messages
3,789
Location
Monmouth, UK
I like $100,000 donations. In fact, I suspect that while what patients give helps directly, it may have more value by acting as magnets for bigger gifts; in a way they show patients are doing what they can, but don't have the resources.

Like the post says, imagine the impact thousand of patient donations would make. Still time to give!
 
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Solstice

Senior Member
Messages
641
Would be helpful if there were other ways to donate than by credit card alone. I myself don't own a credit card and most transactions in my country actually happen through ideal or paypal I think. Most people I know don't own a credit card either, so it's gonna be hard to get them to go through the hassle of donating to this.
 
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AndyPR

Senior Member
Messages
2,516
Location
Guiding the lifeboats to safer waters.
Solstice said:
Would be helpful if there were other ways to donate than by credit card alone. I myself don't own a credit card and most transactions in my country actually happen through ideal or paypal I think. Most people I know don't own a credit card either, so it's gonna be hard to get them to go through the hassle of donating to this.
Click to expand...

From their FAQ http://giving.columbia.edu/faqs
The secure online gift form allows you to make a gift in a variety of ways. If you do not want to use the gift form, please follow these instructions:

To make a gift by credit card, call us toll-free at 866-GIFT-SYS (1-866-443-8797).

You can mail a check made out to Columbia University. Please include a note with instructions for directing your gift to ensure that it is properly credited. Mail checks to the Gift Systems Department at the following address:

Columbia University Gift Systems
MC 4520
622 W. 113th Street
New York, NY 10025
phone 1-866-GIFTSYS
fax 212-851-1240
e-mail giftsys@columbia.edu

Columbia also accepts cash gifts by wire transfer. To make a gift to Columbia by wire please contact Columbia’s Gift Systems department at giftsys@columbia.edu or 1-866-GIFTSYS.

For gifts of securities, please contact the Treasury Services Office at (212) 854-9694.

You can set up an estate gift or a life income gift through our Office of Gift Planning by e-mailing gift.planning@columbia.edu or by calling (212) 851-7857 or (800) 338-3294.

For questions regarding gifts not included above, or for more information, please contact us.
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From what you say it probably still won't help but thought I'd flag it up just in case :)
 
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Solstice

Senior Member
Messages
641
Sidereal said:
A Paypal button would be great. I wonder if some people are put off by the process of having to go through all the steps on Columbia U donation webpage.
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Well, i definitely am. And familymembers wanting to donate are too. I've just donated to the OMF where it was as simple as filling in my paypal-login, the amount of money and then click on donate. To be able to donate to this we'd first have to find someone who owns a creditcard, transfer money to it, then have him/her donate it to this study.
 
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Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
@Solstice

Columbia Uni aren't intending to introduce PayPal at the moment, despite the demand for it, so we just have to live with the payment facilities that they provide. Bank wire transfer seems like a helpful option if you don't have a bank card.

BTW, just out of interest, in the UK every bank account comes with a debit card, which works in the same way as a credit card but takes money directly from your bank account. And if we can't get a bank account we can still get a pre-pay MasterCard with almost no fees.
 
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Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
Bob said:
Columbia Uni aren't intending to introduce PayPal at the moment, despite the demand for it, so we just have to live with the payment facilities that they provide. Bank wire transfer seems like a helpful option if you don't have a bank card.
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I think casual visitors to the website who aren't as invested in this illness and project as the 150 people who have donated so far are not going to go through the trouble of a bank wire transfer. I'm talking about people who may stumble on this project on Facebook or whatever and would wish to quickly donate a few bucks by clicking the Paypal button for the sake of a sick friend or relative. I donated to the OMF recently and it took me literally 5 seconds whereas the Columbia process took about 10 minutes. 10 minutes is nothing to me, a disabled ME/CFS patient, but it would deter a lot of regular people.
 
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Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
Sidereal said:
I think casual visitors to the website who aren't as invested in this illness and project as the 150 people who have donated so far are not going to go through the trouble of a bank wire transfer. I'm talking about people who may stumble on this project on Facebook or whatever and would wish to quickly donate a few bucks by clicking the Paypal button for the sake of a sick friend or relative. I donated to the OMF recently and it took me literally 5 seconds whereas the Columbia process took about 10 minutes. 10 minutes is nothing to me, a disabled ME/CFS patient, but it would deter a lot of regular people.
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I know. In the UK we can donate to many charities by text message as well, which is even easier than PayPal. But the point I was making is that Columbia University have no intention of adding PayPal at the moment, and we can't do anything about it. Unless we start a letter-writing campaign to Columbia to ask them to add a PayPal donation option.
 
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Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
Bob said:
I know. In the UK we can donate to many charities by text message as well, which is even easier than PayPal. But the point I was making is that Columbia University have no intention of adding PayPal at the moment, and we can't do anything about it. Unless we start a letter-writing campaign to Columbia to ask them to add a PayPal donation option.
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I understand. I know this is out of your hands. I wasn't being critical of you or anyone involved with the microbiome crowdfund, just pointing out the realities of regular people's busy lifestyles.
 
aimossy

aimossy

Senior Member
Messages
1,106
At the bottom of the home page is the donation options for check if you are in the USA, and wire/bank transfer options for USA and international bank transfers. Quite a lot of people did use these options.
http://microbediscovery.org/

@Sidereal your right and it has been a difficult problem. The MDP team tried really hard to figure out the best options with respect to what the universities policies allow, also within the constrains of MDP not being a non-profit and the difficulties to become one. Many options take cuts out of donations on giving sites as well. Donating directly solved a lot of issues. At this time it is still a difficulty but an idea has come up and the team will talk to CII about it being a possibility. No guarantees on the idea at all, but the team has not given up trying to find ways around this because they are aware of the difficulties for people.
 
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aimossy

aimossy

Senior Member
Messages
1,106
Debit cards are now becoming common as a form of being able to pay for things online without having to use credit. Some of them are like cards used for eftpos that also have online option like credit cards.

Thanks for making such an effort to donate @Solstice
 
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