ME Assoc funds Gow

[Guest guest]

MAY BE REPOSTED

ME ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES FURTHER FUNDING OF £28,675 TO ENSURE THE

CONTINUATION OF DR JOHN GOW'S GENETIC RESEARCH STUDY

The ME Association is delighted to announce that it is going to

continue to fund the vital genetic research study being carried out

by Dr Gow and his team at the University of Glasgow. This

follows the decision by ish Enterprise not to provide any

further financial support for the second phase of the study.

Following discussions with Dr Gow last Friday, the MEA has agreed to

release

the sum of £28,675 from our research funds as soon as it is required.

This

is in addition to nearly £9,000 that the MEA has already given as an

emergency measure over the past three months to ensure that Dr Gow's

research assistant was able to stay in post to help analyse

preliminary data

and prepare this information for publication in a scientific journal.

The MEA grant will link in with the £8,000 recently provided by MERGE

to pay

for consumables, along with a number of other generous donations from

individuals and groups.

So the second phase of the study should now be able to commence in

August.

Why is this type of genetic research so important in ME/CFS?

In very simple terms, the Glasgow University research group will be

using a

technique called DNA chip microassay analysis to map out what is

happening

to a vast amount of individual genetic information - over 33,000 gene

sequences in each individual. The scientists will be carrying out this

genetic analysis on a large group of people with ME/CFS, another

large group

of healthy matched controls, and a further large group of people with

a

range of other illnesses - such a multiple sclerosis and depression -

in

which fatigue is a major clinical symptom. In particular, the

scientists

will be trying to identify whether there is a unique profile of

genetic

abnormalities in people with ME/CFS by looking for data which

indicates that

certain specific genes are either up-regulated or down-regulated -

roughly

meaning that they are being over-active, under-active or 'switched -

off'.

The activity of these genes - gene expression in medical jargon - can

have

very important consequences on the types of cellular activity,

including

crucial biochemical pathways, that they control in the nervous system,

immune system, and all other parts of the body. So the ultimate aim

of the

study is to identify specific gene abnormalities which may then lead

to new

avenues of research and the presence of a diagnostic biomarker or

diagnostic

biomakers which is/are only present in ME/CFS.

Preliminary results from phase one of this study already indicate that

significant abnormalities in gene expression are present in the ME/CFS

group, but this data now needs to be confirmed in a much larger trial.

This type of information on gene expression will also be highly

relevant to

new forms of treatment which are worth assessing. And as the data

becomes

clearer, a further phase of the research will hopefully then involve a

clinical trial of drug treatment aimed at the underlying cause of

ME/CFS.

Keeping up political pressure for research - what can you do?

Whilst this vital research into the physical cause of ME/CFS is now

fully

funded for the next year, the MEA believes that the continuing lack of

government funding into the physical cause of ME/CFS is a major public

scandal. The next opportunity to raise this at a political level will

come

when the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meets at Westminster on

Wednesday July 6th. So we would urge individuals and local groups to

do all

they can to persuade their newly elected MPs to attend this meeting

and hear

the presentation on the dire state of government funded research that

is

going to form part of this APPG agenda. Further details on political

activity are available on the parliamentary section of the MEA

website at:

http://www.meassociation.org.uk.

Further MEA initiatives

a.. Dr Gow will be giving an illustrated lecture on genetic

research

into ME/CFS at an MEA medical meeting on the aftenoon of Saturday

September

3rd. More information on this public meeting is available on the MEA

website and in ME Essential.

a.. The only way that the MEA can continue to fund this type of vital

research is through donations to our two research funds. If you wish

to

donate, in order to help support either this study or future studies,

then

please consider making a donation right now. Further details on how

to do so

can again be found on either the MEA website or in ME Essential.

ENDS