Prof George Davey Smith, a clinical epidemiologist at the university of Bristol, says there is a need for large scale genetic studies of ME/CFS as it is not possible to draw accurate conclusions from small scale studies. Simon McGrath reports on Prof Davey’s talk at the UK CFS/ME Research Collaborative (CMRC) conference in Nov 2015 where he announced his intention to play a role in the largest set of studies ever proposed for ME/CFS: Professor Stephen Holgate’s Grand Challenge, which is now moving forward.

Read more about the problems with small scale genetics studies: The power and pitfalls of omics: George Davey Smith’s storming talk at ME/CFS conference , by Simon McGrath, Feb 15 2016

Prof Davey went on to describe the promises and pitfalls of two other big-data omics approaches that are likely to be applied for the first time on a huge scale to ME/CFS, as part of the Grand Challenge. While genomics examines the DNA itself, these two approaches — epigenomics and transcriptomics — look at how the body makes use of that DNA. Read more in: The power and pitfalls of omics part 2: epigenomics, transcriptomics and ME/CFS by Simon McGrath, Feb 26 2016