Action for ME blog post, 28 Sep 2016: MEGA research for M.E./CFS: pledge your support

Please add your voice to support a significant biomedical research project to investigate the biology of M.E.

Launched at the UK CFS/M.E. Research Collaborative conference, the M.E./CFS Epidemiology and Genomics Alliance (MEGA)’s website asks people to pledge their support for a big data study of 12,000 men, women and children with M.E./CFS, the first of its kind in the UK. For this to have a high chance of success when it applies for funding, MEGA needs evidence that patients support MEGA – which is why adding your name in support is so important.

“We know that people with M.E./CFS experience different symptoms at different times, and that these symptoms fluctuate over time and in terms of severity,” says MEGA. “So it is quite possible that the umbrella term M.E./CFS contains more than one illness with more than one underlying cause. So far, definitions have been based on symptoms which may not be related to the underlying biology. We want to investigate not just the causes and underlying biology of M.E./CFS, but also its different types (sub-phenotypes) which may be caused by different underlying mechanisms. This may eventually enable development of new diagnostic tests and new treatments for each sub-phenotype.”

MEGA’s “big data” study will investigate, in terms of DNA, RNA and other molecules, the distinctive genetics, epigenetics, proteomics and metabolomics os people with M.E./CFS, using a very large number of samples. Such studies are the latest trend in population-based scientific research and are the way to generate the most useful data and the most productive research.

Please back this potentially game-changing biomedical research for people with M.E./CFS by adding your support to #makeitMEGA

Sign the petition  Over 1,100 signed before the end of Sep 2016.