A persons unique "immune profile" and unique microbiome as Derya Unutzman called them, most likely have a huge impact on the cytokine profiles seen in ME/CFS and why they can't find a common cytokine profile or signature.
Good point
@ljimbo423! Many researchers have looked for one that's for sure!
Just read the CFSAC transcript where he describes his "different" approach & fields probing questions from the Committee [starts halfway down the page on day 2].
He strongly believes ME/CFS is an "immunological disease" in the "ugly" category on his "Good-Bad-Ugly" chart.
The "immune system falls off a cliff" and doesn't recover is how he puts it then asks, "Why doesn't the immune system "reset" to a steady state like it normally does?"
Examining three things that "regulate" immune functioning: the immune system itself(immune profile), the microbiome, and the metabolome in each patient, generating huge amounts of data, then using a systems biology approach:
"
we're trying to link using machine learning, artificial intelligence approaches the types of symptoms the patient has, the type of metabolome, the type of immune profile, the type of microbiome, bring this together. It's literally putting the patient back together...and can we associate these with... disease duration or the severity and so on."
"we have to consider the patient as a whole..."
"one person's set point might be another person's abnormality..."
He hopes this method will "molecularly" define subgroups and common and personalized features within them.
When patient advocate Donna Pearson asked if he considered outbreaks, i.e., when a group of people are stricken at the same time, he said he wasn't looking at initial triggers.
Her excellent question helped me distinguish his work from immunologist Mark Davis'.
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