OMF: Up Close with Robert Phair, PhD

[Indigophoton]

On this #OMFScienceWednesday we introduce you to researcher Robert Phair, PhD, running the OMF-funded metabolic trap project. Today, Dr. Phair shares his personal connections and how he became a part of OMF’s End ME/CFS research project.

“I was a professor of physiology and biomedical engineering at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for 16 years before co-founding (with Ann Chasson) Integrative Bioinformatics Inc, a scientific consulting and software development firm in Mountain View, CA. We combine basic principles from human biology and systems engineering to test complex biological theories against experimental and clinical data. Our clients are scientists at research institutions and pharmaceutical firms.

I hadn't heard this snippet before,

...During this period, the first results of the OMF-funded, Severely Ill Patient Study (SIPS) became available. These data included whole genome sequencing for 20 patients, and I began to look, one gene at a time, for potential genetic predispositions. Eighty-six genes later, I found a gene for which every SIPS patient had at least one damaged copy. But because another gene provided a biological workaround, it took me all summer to imagine a theory that might explain the origin of ME/CFS based on this common mutation. This is the theory I called the “Metabolic Trap.”

https://www.omf.ngo/2018/06/13/robert-phair/