Dr Karl Morten - UK researcher based at Oxford University

Adrian

Adrian

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I believe it relates to this study
1) Examining Mitochondria in ME/CFS

We hope this important study will begin in 2017, and while we await a formal application, we can confirm that scientists from the University of Oxford and Newcastle University will spend about 12 months analysing nearly 300 blood samples from the UK ME/CFS Biobank looking at the chemical clues that are left behind after changes in cells. It is hoped that these metabolites will provide some indication of what might be causing ME/CFS.

The British research will also try to replicate the findings from an important 2016 study by Dr Robert Naviaux, which suggested that ME/CFS could be caused by the body going into a state of semi-hibernation. Dr Morten will be working alongside Dr James McCullagh, Associate Professor in Mass Spectrometry at the University of Oxford, and Professor Julia Newton, Dean for Clinical Medicine at Newcastle University.

Funding for this research has come largely from the 2016 ME Asscociation Christmas Appeal which raised £70,000.

Lead researcher: Dr Karl Morten

RRF investment = £100,000
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http://www.meassociation.org.uk/research/current-research/current-research-studies/
 
Charles Shepherd posted this response on fb when asked about a recording or transcript.

Charles Shepherd At this stage I'm not sure if there will be a report or transcript of this meeting. I will check with Karl to see if it is being recorded but I suspect the answer is no. CS
 
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I have just finished watching this and found it very interesting. Too much detail and I won't attempt to summarise it as I'll be sure to get some of it wrong, but I do recommend it. Edit: though it was very frustrating only being able to see one side of the slides.

It's one and a half hours. Approximately half hour summarising lots of general stuff about ME, then half an hour on his research, and a final half hour of questions. I'd say the middle half hour is the most interesting part.

His team are working on lots of aspects of ME - mitochondria, metabolomics, etc, and in the process of putting in a bid for £1.6 million to expand their work.
 
Trish said:
I have just finished watching this and found it very interesting. Too much detail and I won't attempt to summarise it as I'll be sure to get some of it wrong, but I do recommend it. Edit: though it was very frustrating only being able to see one side of the slides.

It's one and a half hours. Approximately half hour summarising lots of general stuff about ME, then half an hour on his research, and a final half hour of questions. I'd say the middle half hour is the most interesting part.

His team are working on lots of aspects of ME - mitochondria, metabolomics, etc, and in the process of putting in a bid for £1.6 million to expand their work.
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Thanks Trish, at last some good news!! I'm just waiting now to hear application for funding has been refused!!
 
They are seeing an interesting difference between patients and controls on a ketogenic diet. There was talk about a possibe clinical trials of a ketone drink for ME/CFS.

PS: to summarize the talk, they are seeing various differences on various tests related to mitochondria and energy production, but it's not yet clear what the exact problem is. This is early days still.
 
Trish said:
I have just finished watching this and found it very interesting. Too much detail and I won't attempt to summarise it as I'll be sure to get some of it wrong, but I do recommend it. Edit: though it was very frustrating only being able to see one side of the slides.

It's one and a half hours. Approximately half hour summarising lots of general stuff about ME, then half an hour on his research, and a final half hour of questions. I'd say the middle half hour is the most interesting part.

His team are working on lots of aspects of ME - mitochondria, metabolomics, etc, and in the process of putting in a bid for £1.6 million to expand their work.
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Is this why SMC hyped the Pariante paper? Large sums of money possibly going on superior research , not done by their cronies?
 
My thoughts keep coming back to this because it's so encouraging. Karl Morten comes across as informed and motivated to get good research going.

obeat said:
Is this why SMC hyped the Pariante paper? Large sums of money possibly going on superior research , not done by their cronies?
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The grant application by Morten is to the MRC. @Jonathan Edwards do you think the hyping of the Pariante study is because Morten is seen as dangerous competitor that could take funding away from biopsychosocial approaches?
 
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I don’t necessarily think the smc needed any reason to promote the Pariante study other than it was MRC funded, a kings study and not too out of line with the current bps theory. They were included in the CMRC for years , presumably to promote research, this is possibly the only thing of much particular interest to come out of the funding allocation. Despite the neglect CFS is clearly a medical issue with much interest. I just very much dislike the SMC controlling the CFS narrative, I wonder what can be done next year to get the #MM media coverage.

The most ironic thing for me was pariante and his psychiatrist friends claiming to be the light in the fog when kings CFS service website is atrocious and they have played a role in discouraging serious interest in the field.

Sorry this was in reference to the above comment primarily, I know it’s off topic.

On topic, thanks for posting. I have watched some of this video, I can only manage small bits at a time and thought it looked really interesting. There was news too regarding the funding application and I’m pleased it’s for a fairly large amount. I still think there’s room for allocated funding to stimulate other researchers.
 
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Finally finished watching this. Expanding a little on @Trish's summary.

Parts of the video are very interesting.

Annoying though: camera is angled so the slides are cut off so only the left edge is visible. Was anyone from here at the talk and took photos by any chance?

The first 40mins or so don't contain much new.

From about 41mins in, where the metabolomics section starts, it gets interesting.

They're working together with a Polish researcher whose name I missed who looks at unusual things like aortic stiffness and cryotherapy as well as doing major metabolomics work. A couple of interesting points from that:

They identified 37000 metabolites of which 11000 were different in ME with 500 potentially important. A disconcerting 95% of these metabolites are unknown.

They've had good success with separating patients from healthy controls using metabolomic patterns but have not yet tested on other fatiguing illnesses so unclear if they're on the trail of an ME biomarker or simply a marker for being ill.

Patients tested before and after up to 8 months of GET have no change in their metabolomic patterns. Very interesting!

The first question after the talk was interesting, too, about mitochondria. The answer was that there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the mitochondria themselves, in fact two studies showed ME patients may even have better mitochondria than controls. One explanation for reduced performance could be that the problem is with fuel not getting into the mitochondria. Another, much more speculative, idea is that it's bad to have mitochondria that are too good. In a mouse study it was shown that mice with slightly sub-optimal mitochondria were better at fighting of viruses than those with optimal mitochondria. If this applies to humans – very big if – it could explain why some patients respond to antivirals: antivirals dampen mitochondria.
 
I finally cleared some time to watch the video and I also have the slides that Dr Morten used.

The MEA helped fund the talk so we'll be publishing both and summarising highlights - did you guys pick up on the Acumen/Myhill/Booth research outcomes? - probably tomorrow now. I had hoped to do it earlier this week, but couldn't due to workload.

I was surprised to see Dr Morten talking openly about the MRC application - researchers don't tend to do so fearing it might jeopardise applications - but I hope it will lead to something positive we can all celebrate in the New Year.

Russell
 
Is there a way to automatically generate a transcript of this? It has the option for closed captions but the instructions I've found on the Net for generating a transcript from them don't work.
 
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