The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has announced that the Bio Bank project, which is lead by Dr Luis Nacul with Dr Eliana Lacerda and Erinna Bowman has been awarded a grant worth over £1 million over three years, by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA.
The press release states –“The grant from the NIH will enable important research on the immunology and genetics of ME/CFS, which may lead to the discovery of much needed disease biomarkers. It will also help to expand the Biobank to store samples from over 500 participants, including almost 300 patients and over 200 controls (comprising healthy controls and people with multiple sclerosis), which will be made available to medical researchers internationally.
Dr Eliana Lacerda from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, one of the lead researchers on the project, said: “At least one in every 500 adults in the UK is affected by ME/CFS at any one time, as well as a smaller but significant proportion of children. The NIH grant provides a huge boost to the Biobank, which will enable more research into the causes of ME/CFS and ultimately help those affected.”
Erinna Bowman, one of the project researchers, said: “A key component of our project is its longitudinal design, which includes participant follow-ups over an extended period of time. This longitudinal aspect makes the Biobank an even more valuable resource and presents new opportunities for scientific discovery in the years to come.”
See more at: http://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/news/2013/06/28/uk-mecfs-biobank-project-awarded-1-million-grant/#sthash.E2HBwCUy.dpuf
It is wonderful to hear that these dedicated researchers have been awarded such a substantial sum for their relevant and valuable research. It is clear that the work will be directed at helping people who have ME, also called CFS in the USA, and not the larger percentage of people who have chronic fatigue. Their 2011 research into prevalence of ME/CFS stated “Our study yielded a minimum prevalence in primary care of 0.2%” This equates to one in 500 or around 126,000 people and so is only about half the number usually given of 250,000 in the UK . It is also interesting to see that these LSHTM researchers, along with most other researchers, consider that ME is less prevalent in children than in adults. That is very good news for children and their families.
The research group at LSHTM is called CURE-ME and more info is at – http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/itd/crd/research/cure-me/
Their 2011 research into the prevalence of ME/CFS can be found at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/9/91