A nanoelectronics-blood-based diagnostic biomarker for ME/CFS (2019) Esfandyarpour, Davis et al

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1901274116

 

Damn. That's really amping my hyperosmotic stress levels. Yoga, right?

 

In a sense, the study does not lend itself to having results in the abstract. You could quote impedance results, for example, but they may have no direct clinical relevance. The main result is a sparation of ME patients from healthy controls.

 

i understand, pwmecfs PBMC perform badly under (hyper)osmotic stress

 

The most exciting news for me was to see Chris Ponting as the first expert on the SMC website.
Also, his critque seems to be the most relevant. Is he also being quoted in the media coverage?

It's a pity the Stanford press release didn't do better. "Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome identified" seems to be misleading. Plus, why only CFS, not ME/CFS in the headline?

 

I wonder if promoting these results to the media prior to independent replication is a mistake.

edit: And the using of non-CFS ill health controls.

 

it doesnt have to do with the sodium inhibitor pump, did they mean to hint that in the paper ?

 

CP is quoted in some of the media coverage.

I agree. It's quite crazy that Ron Davis himself often uses the term CFS rather than ME or ME/CFS, given the state Whitney is in.

 

Not necessarily in my opinion. The way the investigators report and promote the results seems to be problematic though.

 

Sorry, but if the authors want other scientists to take them seriously they need to present the crucial data in the abstract in a watertight form. There is never any difficulty doing that if you have hard data. If the impedance results are of no clinical relevance then the study is of no clinical relevance. The main result is separation of impedance results in ME patients and controls!

 

The graphs look pretty persuasive to me, I just really hope we get a breakthrough that works out and not another repeat of XMRV. Do we know anything about how well controlled it was such as were the measurements made blind and all samples collected and handled in the same way ?

*I see they addressed some of this
both sets of samples collected simultaneously
Patient and control samples were handled exactly the same in all preprocessing steps.

 

I am sorry to say that I still do not understand what they did or why. I have no idea how many cells they tested or whether they even knew how many cells they were testing. The introduction does not inspire confidence. I really would like to think this study is meaningful but so far I can get no feel for what these lines mean.

 

Ron Davis about the study

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qn0fIV8SbE

 

I think what this boils down to is that we have an 'identifier' but we don't yet understand why. Of course the impedance results are relevant - we just don't know how relevant.

 

they must be sure that this impedence problem is different with autism, MS, fibromyalgia (...) ?
they cant have just controlled with healthy people ?

 

He says in the video checking other relevant diseases is the next step.

 

I don't think this should have been pitched to the media before independent replication. This has the potential to hurt us as badly as the XMRV fiasco.

 

Presumably replication also means replicating the technology, not just the results. Or am I saying nonsense?

 

I dont know about any of this, i'm troubled by Prof @Jonathan Edwards' comments so i'm not getting excited.


in the independent article

oh well no need to worry then... CBT will address this overreaction & stop those silly cells from catastrophising