I certainly didn't intend to characterize an entire group of patients, and I hope no one thought I was saying every (or even most patients) are extraordinarily intelligent, nerdy, or non-athletic.
Thanks
@Manders. As far as characterisations go there are a lot worse things to be than extraordinarily intelligent, nerdy and non-athletic.

I don't have a problem with us tossing around theories here about things that might have contributed to our illness. It's when people in key positions to determine research directions present what seem to be unsubstantiated theories as facts that I get a bit ranty. Thanks for your followup post and welcome to the forum.
Sorry to distract from the symposium with that side issue. Thanks very much to all involved. I'd not heard of Raeka before and I missed her introduction. She did a very nice job of compering the sessions and seemed well across the developments.
The presentations are going to provide much to think about for the next few weeks.
I'm really interested in the nano chip that tests impedence. The finding that serum from ME patients contains something that makes a cell not work so well seems like a major breakthrough. Would it be possible for an independent research team to be given some chips in order to replicate the results with a different sample?
I'd also be very interested to hear a bit more about plans for identifying the mystery molecule in the serum as that must be a very important aim. (Apologies if that was covered in the final panel discussion, I had to miss some of that.)