Mikovits seminar at Cornell Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

[Advocate]

Seminar on newly discovered retrovirus, XMRV, in chronic fatigue syndrome patients


The discovery of XMRV by Judy Mikovits and her colleagues at the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, NV holds promise for improved treatment strategies for these patients.

You are invited to attend a seminar given by Dr. Mikovits at Cornell University:

Detection and Immune Correlates of XMRV Infection
in Neuroimmune Disease and Cancer

Friday, Feb. 5, 2010
12:15 p.m.
Boyce Thompson Auditorium

Dr. Mikovits's web page is at: http://www.wpinstitute.org/research/research_profiles.html

If you would like to meet with Dr. Mikovits, please contact her host,
Dr. Maureen Hanson (mrh5@cornell.edu).

=======
Contributed by Jackie Wandell on 01/29/10

XMRV was recently reported in October, 2009 in the journal Science that suggests a viral etiology for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

CFS is characterized, most notably, by prolonged fatigue or post-exertional malaise following normal, non-stressful levels of physical activity that are typical of activities of daily living (ADL).

Often those with CFS are unable to maintain a normal lifestyle, including regular employment, due to excessive recovery time associated with ADLs.

 

[FernRhizome]

Advocate:
Where did you find the info on the Cornell Mikovits seminar? Is it for researchers/doctors? or for patients? or for both? It must have to do with the upcoming Cornell study. ~FernRhizome

 

[Advocate]

Advocate:
Where did you find the info on the Cornell Mikovits seminar? Is it for researchers/doctors? or for patients? or for both? It must have to do with the upcoming Cornell study. ~FernRhizome

It's on an Ithaca College website, so I wonder if that means that people from both Cornell and Ithaca College will be working on the study that Mikovits mentioned in her California talk.

 

[Advocate]

The Ithaca College notice says that Dr. Maureen Hanson is the person to contact about the seminar. So I googled her, and learned that she is the one who advertised for a post-doc in December.

From the description below, it sounds like a terrific study.

http://www.upstatenyherc.org/c/job.cfm...
1

7 DECEMBER2009

Post Dr Assoc: Cornell University

Cornell University, located in Ithaca, New York, is an inclusive, dynamic, and innovative Ivy League university and New York's land-grant institution. Its staff, faculty, and students impart an uncommon sense of larger purpose and contribute creative ideas and best practices to further the university's mission of teaching, research, and outreach.

The Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics seeks a postdoctoral research associate to study the role of the newly discovered retrovirus XMRV in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Blood from a cohort of CFS patients and controls in upstate New York will be examined for the presence of virus, viral proteins, and antibodies to viral proteins.

Sequences of XMRV from different patients will be obtained in order to characterize the diversity of viruses in the population. Whether virus sequences correlate with functional status of CFS patients will be determined.

This project will be undertaken in collaboration with the Whittemore-Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada and the Columbia University Center for Infection and Immunity as well as with several physicians treating CFS patients.

For more information regarding the Department of Molecular Biology and
Genetics, visit http://mbg.cornell.edu/ .

Qualifications: PhD degree in an area of Molecular Biology and/or Biochemistry or Virology. Prior experience with mammalian cell culture and/or
retroviruses is desirable but not required.

Please send cover letter and CV with names of three references to Prof. Maureen Hanson, Dept of Molecular Biology and Genetics,
323 Biotechnology Bldg., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 or to cfs.study@gmail.com. Applications will be received for consideration
until a suitable candidate is identified.

Cornell University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action educator and employer.

Job: Molecular Biology & Genetics
Primary Location: Ithaca
Requisition Number: 11845
Organization: Molecular Biology & Genetics - AG

 

[Advocate]

Moderator: Should this announcement have its own thread?

I received a reply from Maureen Hansen, PhD, the organizer of the seminar.

The Cornell lecture is a free public seminar and you are certainly welcome to attend.* You will need to obtain a visitor parking permit at a parking kiosk.* There is one not far from the Boyce Thompson Institute, and there are some visitor parking spaces behind the Institute.* You can find campus maps online.

I warn you that this seminar will be very technical, as it is designed to be at the level of graduate students and PhD scientists and faculty.* One reason that scientists give such lectures is to inform each other about the latest research findings, and in the case of XMRV, such lectures may encourage additional scientists to work on XMRV and CFS.

 

[muffin]

I wonder if these people have done enough of a good job of getting this Mikovits Seminar into the mainstream media? Might hit AP, major newspapers, TV stations, etc.

 

[V99]

Perhaps some UK researchers need to be invited? like McClure. Free education.

 

[FernRhizome]

Advocate, that's fantastic you can go to this!!!! It crossed my mind but would be a 2 day trip for me. As you can imagine I'd love to be there for the talk. I knew Cornell Univerisity was involved but didn't know about Ithaca College. Is Ithaca college part of Cornell? Or separate? ~FernRhziome

 

[FernRhizome]

I just looked up Dr. Maureen Hanson too and it's funny that it sounds like she has a plant science research background, rather than human! ~FernRhziome

 

[Advocate]

Ithaca College is in the same town as Cornell. There's no connection, as far as I know.

 

[usedtobeperkytina]

Well, Mikovitz sure is busy. Let's keep up the pressure. This is so wonderful. February 5? That is just two weeks since her last public performance. My goodness, we are going to get overloaded with information. I didn't understand 1/4 of what she said on Jan. 22. If this is for public, even if it is not, you guys in the area call local news media (print and T.V. and radio) and tell them about the talk so they can cover it.

"Nevada Retrovirologist Discussed New Discovery Associated with Multiple Diseases"

Can't you see a great headline like this?

Or

"Nevada Retrovirologist said Newly-discovered Virus Linked with Cancer and Other Diseases"

Or

"Is CFS, Autism, Fibromyalgia, Prostate Cancer and Breast Cancer Caused by Virus?"

Tina

 

[Kati]

The part I like most is this part: "If you would like to meet with Dr. Mikovits, please contact her host,
Dr. Maureen Hanson (mrh5@cornell.edu)"

She sounds pretty open to meet anybody that would like to talk to her. Who knows she might even give Dr Hanson a hand at finding XMRV in her study. Wessley did a really really big mistake (well many)

 

[muffin]

I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to hear what comes out of your study!! Please keep us posted!!!!!!

Advocate, that's fantastic you can go to this!!!! It crossed my mind but would be a 2 day trip for me! I am actually IN the Cornell University study. We are waiting to hear when the draw date will be. So I am on the edge of my seat! As you can imagine I'd love to be there for the talk. I knew Cornell Univerisity was involved but didn't know about Ithaca College. Is Ithaca college part of Cornell? Or separate? ~FernRhziome

 

[FernRhizome]

When there are any Cornell results I'll post them here, but it will be a few months wait I am sure. There will probably be some other studies out before then! It's hard to wait!!!!!

Advocate:
I got your private message and replied but the messages I sent back to you aren't appearing in my "sent" box. Did you happen to get them? ~FernRhizome

 

[Rrrr]

from dr hanson, who is organizing the cornell talk by judy mikovits....

Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:34:40 -0500
From: Maureen Hanson <mrh5@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Judy Mikovits talk
X-Originating-IP: [209.85.219.222]
Sender: maureen.hanson@gmail.com


While I understand the great interest that the CFS community has in any talk given by Dr. Judy Mikovits, her research seminar will not be videotaped or put online. Seminars in the Infection and Immunity Series are intended for graduate students, faculty, and other researchers at Cornell. All of the published data that Dr. Mikovits will cover is already available in her Santa Barbara talk at <http://prohealth.com>prohealth.com.

Sincerely,

Maureen Hanson
Professor

 

[Hope123]

Thanks for posting this!

I will see if my scientist friend can attend it since she lives in upstate NY. On the one hand, it's good they're doing the study up there, esp. with the Lyndonville outbreak and Dr. Bell. On the other hand, Cornell's med school is based in NYC so their clinical staff is mostly down there.

It's great to see Dr. Mikovits traveling and talking to other scientists. From Cort's report, Defreitas didn't do enough of this - not that I'm faulting her since she didn't have a whole lot of support and had her own issues to deal with.

 

[usedtobeperkytina]

Still can't get some local news media attention, if you want.

Tina

 

[Advocate]

Mikovits seminar is NOT open to the public

Below is a notice that appeared on Facebook today, announcing that the Cornell seminar is closed to the public. I suspect I am partly to blame for the closure.

When I saw the notice on a little-read Ithaca College website, I was excited and wanted everyone to know. The website said the seminar was open to the public, so I announced it repeatedly on this forum. It didn't occur to me that it might hurt us, not help us, if I and others went to the seminar and reported on anything new we could pick up.

I've had second thoughts. If XMRV researchers are unable to discuss their data in informal forums such as seminars for fear of having their off-the-record comments and preliminary data "published" on the internet, it might be detrimental to progress. I want progress more than anything.

We all remember what happened to Elaine DeFreitas when her data was reported prematurely.

So if you've packed your bags because of me, I apologize.
================

NOTICE FROM THE WHITTEMORE-PETERSON INSTITUTE

It has become public knowledge that Dr. Mikovits will be meeting with Professor Maureen Hanson of the Department of Molecular Biology at Cornell University.

While the majority of their time will be spent discussing molecular biology and techniques related to detecting the virus XMRV from clinical samples, Dr. Mikovits has agreed to give a lecture at Cornell.

Seminars in the Infection and Immunity Series are intended for graduate students, faculty, and other researchers at Cornell and are not intended for the public.

The room where the lecture will be held is quite small, and the topics will be technical, geared for graduate level studies.

As for recording the lecture, we normally do not record such lectures and do not make them available on the internet. The reason for this is that we expect scientists to discuss not only their published work, but also their unpublished work, hypotheses, and preliminary data that has not yet been peer-reviewed and may not be sufficiently complete to submit for publication.

The purpose of these lectures is partly for the researcher to get feedback from other scientists, exchange ideas, as well as informing other scientists of the new developments in a research project.

We understand that there is a great interest in any news on the research front as regards XMRV and CFS, and are sorry that this lecture will not be open to the public.

The published data that Dr. Mikovits will cover, along with extensive question and answer is already available from her Santa Barbara talk at prohealth.com.

 

[thefreeprisoner]

Oh, I do so hope this wasn't the WPI announcement that was supposed to happen today.

Rachel xx

 

[Countrygirl]

Dr Judy's lecture is TODAY. :victory: Does anyone know anyone who is able to attend and report back?

Thanks. :Retro smile: