Preprint Biological Insights from Genome-Wide Association Studies and Whole Genome Sequencing of [ME/CFS], 2026, Maccallini et al

[MrMagoo]

What I understand as a lay person with little science knowledge is that where ME is concerned, there won’t be one sudden “we found the cause, it’s X” it’s going to be an process of looking further into areas, discovering stuff, even re-analysing previous clues, closer to completing a jigsaw puzzle piece by piece than finding a buried treasure.

That’s why science advances are exciting - because we found a corner piece and more of the edges. Once you have the edges you can re-evaluate those funny single-colour pieces that might fit in, maybe connect a patch of pieces.

But the puzzle is far from complete and the research is just a jumble of pieces, some might be useful, some might obviously be from a different jigsaw and not fit. Some piece that seemed odd and not likely to fit actually slots in perfectly when you find the surrounding ones and see the ideal space for it was there all along.

 

[V.R.T.]

I have actually often said it might have been last week and not known to us, too. I think that is a significant possibility.

Obviously what you say here is hypothetical but do you mean it in the sense of a massive finding being discovered 'last week' but not written up/published by the lab yet, so we are all unaware?

That is an exciting idea!

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Obviously what you say here is hypothetical but do you mean it in the sense of a massive finding being discovered 'last week' but not written up/published by the lab yet, so we are all unaware?

It does not have to be a massive finding. It may be something that just happens to make sense of a lot of other stuff. All the key clues I had for RA had been published by someone else before. In one crucial case it turned out it had been previously published, by




us!