By David Tuller, DrPH
Along with several colleagues, Professor Chris Ponting, a geneticist at the University of Edinburgh and a leading ME/CFS researcher, recently posted a pre-print called “Replicated blood-based biomarkers for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis not explicable by inactivity.” (A pre-print is a paper that has not yet been formally peer-reviewed.) For this analysis, the investigators examined data for more than 3,000 molecular and cellular traits in samples from the UK Biobank, including from 1,455 ME cases and 131,303 controls. They found 116 traits that were significant among both female and male ME patients.
Earlier today, I spoke about the study with Professor Ponting, who is also the lead investigator for DecodeME, a major genome-wide association study of ME/CFS.
Thanks to both of you for the interview, I think I understand the study a lot better now. It’s important groundwork, and the lack of difference between sexes is especially interesting given the female predominance. Hopefully it’ll provide a focus for future work on identifying biomarker panels.