(Entries sought) Founders’ Science Writing Award 2024: “The Future of ME/CFS Research” (ME Research UK)

ME Research UK:
Future ME/CFS research trends are an area of immense interest to all those affected by the disease. Far more ME/CFS research is being carried out – in more areas than ever before – and ME Research UK is delighted to announce a new writing competition to reflect this.

The Founders’ Science Writing Award asks early career scientists to write about what they believe is "The Future of ME/CFS Research”. The competition aims to give early career researchers the opportunity to develop skills in communicating science in a way that is accessible and engaging to the public. These skills are essential to aid researchers secure funding in the modern research landscape, and to communicate important findings to people with ME/CFS and the wider public.

Find out more: https://bit.ly/wrAward2024

 

ME Research UK:

ME Research UK’s first Founders’ Science Writing Award was won by Hollie Watmuff. Formerly a postdoctoral research associate at New York University, Hollie is now an Associate Medical Writer.

Here is her winning entry on using non-coding RNA to diagnose ME/CFS: https://bit.ly/41ZxTpO

 

Do we have any threads on her research?

 

Thanks for the link, I thought it was this other one, but the number of miRNA she says were upregulated (3) matches the Moreau paper, but not this Soffritti paper (5). (But strangely, the Moreau paper has 41 people with ME/CFS, but she says 40. This other paper has 40.)

Circulating miRNAs Expression in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 2023 Soffritti et al

 

ME Research UK:

Second place in ME Research UK's Founders' Science Writing Award went to Krista Clarke, who is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Surrey. Here is Krista's entry on the development of quantitative diagnostic biomarkers for ME/CFS: tinyurl.com/38455t5u

 

Link

 

I thought about this for a minute. I’m not sure I agree that would be the best way to spend our limited resources, but assuming it is.

I thought perhaps something like a decentralised social media could work well, like create a dedicated lemmy or mastodon instance, but those tend to be technical to set up and short posts probably just aren’t the right format.

Then I thought about an actual centralised website where every research team would have access to edit their relevant page, it honestly sounds like a setup nightmare.

Then I thought, probably the best solution would just be to give research teams their own threads on S4ME, which could be set up so that only they can add posts to it if they so wish.

I honestly feel it’s the best compromise of blend of having a place where people can discuss things and present things without being too limited format wise.

 

Please do not make a website where the researchers get to describe their own work. They already have platforms to publish their opinions - it’s called a journal.

What we need are platforms where everyone else can talk about their research so that everyone doesn’t have to learn through their own mistakes. Like what this forum facilitates.