1st International Workshop on XMRV

[Lesley]

Prepare for some fireworks - Mikovits and McClure are on the scientific committee! More info on the conference from the CFIDS facebook page:

Information from: http://www.virology-education.com/i..._XMRV/vid/1FF10297-0DC4-5841-64634A68A3EC3EF1

The First International Workshop on XMRV: Pathogenesis, Clinical and Public Health Implications, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Virology Education will be held on September 7-8 this year at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

The objective of this scientific conference is to assemble an international group of scientists, physicians and epidemiologists to present and discuss, in a public forum, the latest XMRV studies on a range of topics including virus-host interactions, cell type tropism, mode of transmission, animal models and the efficacy of current antiretroviral drugs.

This meeting will offer an interactive setting where the latest developments in the field can be presented in order to evaluate the state of our knowledge, address controversies, and develop an understanding between experts that will help direct future research.

Two committees are active in the organization of the workshop, together with the organizing secretariat.

Organizing Committee
The members of the Organizing Committee (OC) collaborate on the content of the scientific program of the workshop, identifying interesting topics and candidate speakers, and reviewing all submitted abstracts.

Charles Boucher, Erasmus University, The Netherlands
John Coffin, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA
Stewart Le Grice, NIH, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA
Robert Silverman, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, USA
Jonathan Stoye, National Institute for Medical Research, UK


Scientific Committee:
The members of the Scientific Committee (SC) assist the OC by providing them with suggestions for speakers and topics. In addition, members of the SC actively participate in the reviewing process of the submitted abstracts.

Norbert Bannert, Koch Institute, Germany
Bill Dahut, National Cancer Institute, USA
Rika Furuta, Japanese Red Cross Osaka Blood Center, Japan
Stephen Goff, Columbia University, USA
Walid Heneine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA
Jerry Holmberg, US Dept HHS, Advisory Committee on Blood Safety, USA
Myra McClure, Imperial College London, UK
Judy Mikovits, Whittemore Peterson Institute, USA
Ila Singh, University of Utah, USA
Suzanne Vernon, CFIDS Association of America, USA


Invited Speakers:
The following speakers have been confirmed for the 1st International Workshop on XMRV.

Host restriction factors
Dr. Kate Bishop, NIMR London, UK

Viral integration
Dr. Sam Chow, UCLA, California, USA

Basic Virology
Dr. John Coffin, NCI Frederick, USA

Prostate Cancer
Dr. Eric Klein, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, USA (keynote lecture)

Animal Models
Dr. Robert Silverman, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, USA

Pathogenesis
Dr. Ila Singh, University of Utah, USA

Assay development
Dr. William Switzer, CDC Atlanta, USA

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Speaker soon to be confirmed

Vaccine Development
Speaker soon to be confirmed

 

[oerganix]

Assay development
Dr. William Switzer, CDC Atlanta, USA

That's not exactly good news, but the rest of them seem pretty darned exciting. McClure will probably talk about XMRV in prostate cancer, as that is what she was about, before SW roped her into his CFS study. The keynote lecture is also about prostate cancer and the CFS speaker is as yet unknown, so we already know where the focus of this conference will be.....unless there are dramatic developments prior to it.

Four months before this HAPPENING. A lot can happen before then.

 

[CBS]

Pathogenesis
Dr. Ila Singh, University of Utah, USA

Dr. Singh may be speaking on pathogenesis but she has at least two CFS and XMRV studies in the works (one looking at the Light "exercise patients" and another looking at a larger group of well characterized CFS patients - selected from Dr. Bateman's practice) and at least one animal study of anti-retroviral medication efficacy against XMRV.

Thanks to Dr. Bateman, Dr. Singh is very much involved in the CFS side of this as well as the prostate cancer side.

 

[Robin]

Assay development
Dr. William Switzer, CDC Atlanta, USA

That's not exactly good news,

From what I remember of CFSAC, the CDC people who are looking into XMRV are the retrovirologists, not Reeves and his staff of researchers. Switzer seems very interesting, actually, and is hopefully impartial:

William M. Switzer, MPH

Non-HIV Surveillance Activity Leader, Laboratory Branch, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, NCHSTP

Bill Switzer, MPH, currently leads his branch in the study of simian retrovirus emergence among people who are exposed to primates during the course of their work and is a well-recognized authority in the field. Switzer joined CDC in 1986 but had been interested in its work since studying public health microbiology as an undergraduate.

He was instrumental in documenting simian foamy virus infection in a natural setting among primate hunters in Cameroon, showing that simian retroviruses are actively crossing to humans. This work was published in Lancet and has received considerable recognition by media and scientific outlets. Switzer said he is proudest of his work in this area along with identification of two other new human retroviruses, HTLV-3 and HTLV-4 (human T-cell lymphotrophic/leukemia virus types 3 and 4), which was published in PNAS in May.

Switzer has received numerous professional awards; the most recent is the 2004 NCHSTP Honor Award.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/about/opportunities/careers/microbiologists.htm

ETA: oops, he's an MPH (Masters in Public Health), they probably shouldn't be calling him doctor...

 

[Navid]

Prepare for some fireworks - Mikovits and McClure are on the scientific committee! More info on the conference from the CFIDS facebook page:

Assay development
Dr. William Switzer, CDC Atlanta, USA

That's not exactly good news, but the rest of them seem pretty darned exciting. McClure will probably talk about XMRV in prostate cancer, as that is what she was about, before SW roped her into his CFS study. The keynote lecture is also about prostate cancer and the CFS speaker is as yet unknown, so we already know where the focus of this conference will be.....unless there are dramatic developments prior to it.

Four months before this HAPPENING. A lot can happen before then.

oerg...please don't take offense ...but to all posters:

can we just have a few minutes, maybe 15-20, to rejoice in happiness abt this announcement before we start to find the faultlines...

This is F_______ing EXCITING!!!!!!! (excuse my language, but i'm so happy to read this):victory::victory::victory::victory::victory::victory: (hopefully)

 

[V99]

I'm going to say something crazy now, but my gut, and the taking a risk toxo makes me want to. I think the letter to McClure from WPI was a challenge to do a proper replication study. I feel that because the WPI never sent samples to McClure, and neither did she ask for any, that this sort of gives McClure a fresh start on CFS XMRV. She never ommited information, buy she did drawn premature conclusions. Well my thought is that perhaps McClure could end up working for us, in a truthful positive way. I think the WPI must also believe this to have written to her. I know she looks like an enemy right now, but she may have the guts to admit she was wrong to have stopped where she did? At least privately.

I know, I'm mad.:Retro tongue:

 

[CBS]

I'm going to say something crazy now, but my gut, and the taking a risk toxo makes me want to. I think the letter to McClure from WPI was a challenge to do a proper replication study. I feel that because the WPI never sent samples to McClure, and neither did she ask for any, that this sort of gives McClure a fresh start on CFS XMRV. She never ommited information, buy she did drawn premature conclusions. Well my thought is that perhaps McClure could end up working for us, in a truthful positive way. I think the WPI must also believe this to have written to her. I know she looks like an enemy right now, but she may have the guts to admit she was wrong to have stopped where she did? At least privately.

I know, I'm mad.:Retro tongue:

V99,

Obviously there are no limits to what a 'toxo' patient might suggest!
My wife's blamed toxo for A LOT over the last 10 years. Speaking of risk taking behavior, did you know that many transplant surgeons recommend testing all motorcycle crash donors for toxo. Apparently the rate of toxo is very high in that population.

Shane

 

[Dr. Yes]

Speaking of risk taking behavior, did you know that many transplant surgeons recommend testing all motorcycle crash donors for toxo. Apparently the rate of toxo is very high in that population.

I wonder if the rate is even higher in the ones who wear bandanas instead of helmets..

 

[Cookie Monster]

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Speaker soon to be confirmed

I hope that the Organising Committee insist on a certain member of the Scientific Committee being offered the opportunity of taking this role. Go Judy !! :Retro smile:

The inclusion of JM in some capacity with the event is very good news regardless :victory:

 

[anciendaze]

XMRV as research topic

For me it's a question of scale.

There are three human exogenous retroviruses (not counting their sub-variants).

The newest retrovirus is potentially five-ten times more prevalent than HIV and it may be lying dormant in millions. It is simple and stable which implies that it may have more transmission media than HIV...

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm still learning the area.

There is one other characteristic of XMRV which should make it interesting to scientists doing research, irrespective of CFS/ME: it has only three genes which have been completely sequenced. We even know their primary functions: capsid, transcriptase, envelope. It has roughly 8,000 base pairs, so, with 2-bits of information per bp , that is 16,000 bits or 2 KB. This is small enough to completely understand, and, to top things off, it inserts genes in human DNA.

No matter what conditions it ultimately turns out to cause, this is a very powerful research tool.

I've lived long enough to have been around the loop of excitment and disappointment repeatedly. The straight-forward XMRV=>CFS inference looks too simple to be the whole story. This virus doesn't appear smart enough to know how to do all the things it is blamed for. I am willing to bet money a great deal will be due to coinfections, and a cascade of failures. I'm also willing to bet many people reading this have had a variety of diagnoses. The reason people say "nobody every dies of CFS" is that every time someone dies their disease is reclassified. It could be that this group is actually lucky. The people who don't reach any balance with the disease may end up in diagnostic categories we all would like to avoid, if we knew what they were.

Research is not simply a matter of pouring money in one end and getting cures out the other, if it were cancer would be history (after some 150 billions.) It is a matter of the human race learning a particular subject. One characteristic of good research is that it opens up avenues that no one suspected existed. The XMRV paper in Science did that. (At best, most research simply provides yes/no answers on hypotheses for which, generally, the answer is not important.) This virus looks, to me, like the simple piece of string which will allow people to unravel any number of knots, if researchers keep pulling on it carefully.

 

[oerganix]

oerg...please don't take offense ...but to all posters:

can we just have a few minutes, maybe 15-20, to rejoice in happiness abt this announcement before we start to find the faultlines...

This is F_______ing EXCITING!!!!!!! (excuse my language, but i'm so happy to read this):victory::victory::victory::victory::victory::victory: (hopefully)

OH, I completely agree that this frippin' exciting! I had only the one objection and Robin has set me straight on that, so my only possible complaint would be that it might focus too much on prostate cancer and not enough on CFS. But when I said a lot can happen in the next 4 months, I meant that if some of the many studies going on get published before the conference, the focus might shift more toward CFS. And as CBS has said, Ila Singh is also interested in CFS. I am really impressed with her. (How about Ila Singh for Reeves' old job?) So, it is flippin' exciting, yes! No offense taken,not at all. Sorry if I rained on the parade.

I also agree that V99 might be right, not mad. I had the feeling from her Australian radio interview that McClure has figured out that she was set up by SW's samples and his urging for a quick and dirty study and she might be willing to out him in order to 1) save her own reputation, 2) do the right thing, 3) indulge in real scientific curiosity about what XMRV in CFS might really be all about. She has to be wondering at this point why she found ZERO XMRV when it has been found in at least small percentages all over the world. Then the news about those other guys and how they didn't reveal that their samples had some positives, according to WPI...

Yeah, let's rejoice!

 

[bel canto]

Hi - welcome to the forum. Your perspective is interesting - sounds like you have some background in this area. The piece of string analogy is a great way to describe XMRV - there seem to be so many knots along the way - the idea that this virus may be a key is very encouraging to think about. Thank you for your thoughts.

 

[fred]

I'm going to say something crazy now, but my gut, and the taking a risk toxo makes me want to. I think the letter to McClure from WPI was a challenge to do a proper replication study. I feel that because the WPI never sent samples to McClure, and neither did she ask for any, that this sort of gives McClure a fresh start on CFS XMRV. She never ommited information, buy she did drawn premature conclusions. Well my thought is that perhaps McClure could end up working for us, in a truthful positive way. I think the WPI must also believe this to have written to her. I know she looks like an enemy right now, but she may have the guts to admit she was wrong to have stopped where she did? At least privately.

I know, I'm mad.:Retro tongue:

A Freedom of Information request has been submitted to Imperial College London ref correspondence concerning the WPI letter. We may find out McClure's position when the request is fulfilled.

 

[Adam]

And the times they are a changing

oerg...please don't take offense ...but to all posters:

can we just have a few minutes, maybe 15-20, to rejoice in happiness abt this announcement before we start to find the faultlines...

This is F_______ing EXCITING!!!!!!! (excuse my language, but i'm so happy to read this):victory::victory::victory::victory::victory::victory: (hopefully)

I'm with you Shebacat.

F___ F____ S____ lets just go yeah!!

And :victory::victory:

And

I get tired of us pulling everything apart.

CFS/ME has got its virus (the one we all knew we had but never thought anyone would find). There will be setbacks, of course...

:victory::victory::victory:

Up the WPI and any other scientist with the courage to stick their necks out. I hope they all get recognition.

 

[Robin]

Just a thought...I think they should really look into lymphoma, too.

Over the past 30 years the number of new cases [of non-hodgkin lymphoma] diagnosed each year has almost doubled. Most of the increase has been among those aged more than 60 years. Medical researchers are baffled.

source: http://lymphoma.about.com/b/2006/09/14/why-is-non-hodgkin-lymphoma-on-the-rise.htm

Higher incidences of NHL and primary brain tumors were noted in the two northern Nevada counties (Washoe [location of Incline Village] and Lyon) in 1986 and 1987 respectively, compared to the southern Nevada (Clark) county.

source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9590603


That would fit the HTLV model: cancer + nueroimunne illness.

 

[lululowry]

Announcing the 1st International Workshop on XMRV

Link:
http://www.virology-education.com/i..._XMRV/vid/1FF10297-0DC4-5841-64634A68A3EC3EF1

Announcement: It is with great pleasure that we announce a new initiative in the field of XMRV research, the "1st International Workshop on XMRV: Pathogenesis, Clinical and Public Health Implications". This workshop will be held on September 7-8 this year at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA..

The objective of this scientific conference is to assemble an international group of scientists, physicians and epidemiologists to present and discuss, in a public forum, the latest XMRV studies on a range of topics including virus-host interactions, cell type tropism, mode of transmission, animal models and the efficacy of current antiretroviral drugs.

This meeting will offer an interactive setting where the latest developments in the field can be presented in order to evaluate the state of our knowledge, address controversies, and develop an understanding between experts that will help direct future research.

This workshop will be co-sponsored by the NIH and will be organized by Virology Education.

We would highly value your attendance at this workshop and look forward to welcoming you at this very important XMRV Workshop in September 2010.

Kind regards,

The Organizing Committee

Charles Boucher, Erasmus University, The Netherlands
John Coffin, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA
Stewart Le Grice, NIH, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA
Robert Silverman, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, USA
Jonathan Stoye, National Institute for Medical Research, UK

Program of Speakers:
Invited Speakers

We proudly present the following list of confirmed speakers for the 1st International Workshop on XMRV:

Host restriction factors
Dr. Kate Bishop, NIMR London, UK

Viral integration
Dr. Sam Chow, UCLA, California, USA

Basic Virology
Dr. John Coffin, NCI Frederick, USA

Prostate Cancer
(keynote lecture) Dr. Eric Klein, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, USA

Animal Models
Dr. Robert Silverman, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, USA

Pathogenesis
Dr. Ila Singh, University of Utah, USA

Assay development
Dr. William Switzer, CDC Atlanta, USA

Chronic Fatique Syndrome
Speaker soon to be confirmed

Vaccine Development
Speaker soon to be confirmed

 

[usedtobeperkytina]

Well, looks like government is joining the band wagon. I like this part: "public forum".

This makes me want to dance the "Band Wagon" dance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuJxYmJlEHY

But, in case you don't like to dance, (Adam, for you) you can do the "Yes cartwheel."

Now that this is sponsored by government, can we get some news media coverage?

Love that Silverman and Singh is there. Isn't Singh doing a CFS study? Oh yes, testing to see if Light study folks have XMRV.

Y'all ( using my southern drawl) at some point, we are going to be flooded with studies right and left, day after day.

As I have said before, hold on, it will be a roller coaster ride. (I won't put a roller coaster video here since we have weak CNS.)

Tina

 

[jewel]

Thanks, Tina, for your consideration of our CNSs...

 

[lululowry]

Who will "our" speaker be?

I'm just waiting to see who will be speaking on CFS...Surely it must be someone conversant in XMRV and CFS, right? That's a pretty small list, right?

 

[lululowry]

And of course I wait on the edge of my seat - not at all easy to do with my shaky leg muscles to see who will be speaking about vaccine development. And of course, who can wait until September?!?!? It's an eternity, but then again really, not that long at all...especially when you have brain fog.