The nanoneedle salt stress test – too good a clue to leave abandoned on the lab bench?

" May offer a therapeutic route ". Dr Fatima Labeed.

https://meassociation.org.uk/2023/1...-aims-to-create-a-diagnostic-test-for-me-cfs/


edit: the statements below all come from the MEA statement link above

“Both our group and the Davis group have identified electrical variations in ME/CFS cells compared to healthy controls. This is itself highly significant, representing a clear marker of pathology.

“However, we need to probe further to identify exactly what these changes are, and what has caused them. This will shed light on the aetiology of ME/CFS, but more importantly will provide a new tool for those studying the cell from a molecular perspective.

“If we know that cell function – for example, inhibition of a specific kind of ion channel – is responsible for the disease, others can then work to address this, which may offer a therapeutic route for researchers in the field.”

Dr Fatima Labeed.
 
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More from the MEA

Added: note that both groups (biomedical engineering at Sarah University, and Cure ME) have previously found differences in the electrical properties of blood between people with ME. and healthy controls/those with MS. Presumably, this is unpublished data.



They [Esfandyarpour et al] felt their findings could represent a diagnostic marker, but since then, there hasn’t been any further research in this area. The ME Association and ME Research UK have jointly funded a new 12-month study that will build upon these initial findings.

The research grant has been awarded to Dr Fatima Labeed and Professor Michael Hughes from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Surrey, and Dr Eliana Lacerda and Caroline Kingdon, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the UK ME/CFS Biobank.

The UK researchers have already used a more robust approach to identify statistically significant differences between the electrical properties in blood from people with ME/CFS compared to healthy and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) controls (using samples from the UK ME/CFS Biobank).

Their preliminary work suggests that the 2019 results from America are repeatable and can be explored in more detail. Furthermore, that they have the potential to be used as a routine diagnostic test.


The grant will be used to:
  1. Apply the approach to a larger cohort (including mild, moderate, severe ME/CFS, and healthy and MS controls) in the hope that it will result in a reliable, repeatable, and low-cost diagnostic tool using the electrical signature from a simple blood test.
  2. Identify the cellular changes that have occurred in order to create the electrical biomarker and in so doing identify new avenues for potential treatments.
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This is all very encouraging. No clues as to what the "more robust" approach is, but the key thing is that they are focusing on the biology, as well as the possibility of a diagnostic test (and using disease controls).

Perhaps even more spectacular are reports that electrical differences are measurable in blood between those with ME and those without - though we have no details about these studies.
 
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Binkie4 said:
“If we know that cell function – for example, inhibition of a specific kind of ion channel – is responsible for the disease, others can then work to address this, which may offer a therapeutic route for researchers in the field.”
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In this example, are they speculating ME/CFS could be a channelopathy? I do realize it's just an example. but the emphasis on electrical variations could be consistent with a channelopathy, in theory.

If so, it would be an acquired channelopathy. Well, at least in part.
 
Article on Health Rising - don't know if there's further/new data --- hoping you guys will analyse!
EDIT - OK skimmed the article & here's an extract:
"UK researchers reported they have already replicated the 2019 results and have done so not just with ME/CFS patients and healthy controls but with multiple sclerosis patients as well. Calling the findings “highly significant”, the UK researchers stated they presented “a clear marker of pathology“."

The Nanoneedle for ME/CFS is Back!
https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2024/02/11/nanoneedle-chronic-fatigue-me-cfs/
 
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Some extracts from https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2024/02/11/nanoneedle-chronic-fatigue-me-cfs/ covering the history of the nanoneedle .


1.“We posit that this assay can potentially offer an outstanding biomarker to rapidly and inexpensively diagnose ME/CFS with high accuracy. In addition, this assay may offer a remarkable opportunity for the discovery of new treatments for this debilitating disease.” Esfandyarpour and Davis 2019, published in PNAS.


2.“"In @stanfordmed study, researchers developed new blood-based test that positively identified participants w/#MECFS. If findings can be validated in larger study, it may provide a diagnostic tool for clinicians & a target for new ME/CFS Txs. #NIH-funded https://stan.md/2IU7nYN“ Francis Collins "

(this statement claiming NIH credit caused a lot of anger when they pulled further funding for more work on this from the Davis Lab)

3. "The research grant* has been awarded to Dr Fatima Labeed and Professor Michael Hughes from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Surrey, and Dr Eliana Lacerda and Caroline Kingdon, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the UK ME/CFS Biobank."

* from ME Research UK and ME Association ( see post #64 Simon_M)

The grant goes to a mixture of seasoned ME/CFS experts and researchers new to the field. While Lacerda co-founded the CureME team with Caroline Kingdon, and co-created the UK ME/CFS Biobank (UKMEB), Dr. Robert Dorey is a nanomaterials expert who has not participated in ME/CFS research before.

4. "...the brief grant description indicates the team has already made significant steps forward. Using “a more robust approach”, the UK researchers report they have already replicated the 2019 results and have done so not just with ME/CFS patients and healthy controls but with multiple sclerosis patients as well. Calling the findings “highly significant”, the UK researchers stated they presented “a clear marker of pathology“."



More from Google about Dr Robert Dorey, the nano materials expert who is new to ME/CFS research.
"About
Professor Robert Dorey holds the Chair in Nanomaterials at the University of Surrey and leads a research group exploring the synthesis, processing and application of inorganic nanomaterials for novel micro and nano solutions for the energy and environment sectors.

The activity forms the core research of the SPARKLab (Sustainable Print Applied Research Knowledge Lab) at the University of Surrey "-

edit: format changes
 
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Some more background from the comment section of the above article:

Whitney Dafoe on February 11, 2024 at 7:46 pm
I know a bit more than this. Rahim Esfandyarpour needed to not only get one of his grants funded to get tenure at the University of California at Irvine where he was working, he needed to get an NIH grant funded. Which is ridiculous, but that’s what he needed to do

He put all of his time and energy into the Nano Needle. And submitted a well written grant to NIH to keep working on it. When NIH turned it down, they not only ended progress on the Nano Needle, they also made it so Rahim Esfandyarpour did not get Tenure, and NIH knew this.

Ron refuses to pursue the Nano Needle without Rahim Esfandyarpour because he follows an ethical rule to never compete with his ex students. He told me today “I will never compete with my ex-students”. He is not willing to help someone understand science better, in turn helping them come up with something brilliant, and then take it away from them and take credit for it.

And Ron currently does not know what has happened to Rahim Esfandyarpour, as he is not responding to phone calls.

Rahim Esfandyarpour could be in a bad situation because of what NIH did to him and his career.

This whole story is truly horrific. And someday this will be a chapter in the long, horrific history of ME/CFS.
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Whitney Dafoe on February 11, 2024 at 5:13 pm

Something very unsavory or likely scandalous has happened here. The results of the initial research were unbelievably positive and Ronald W. Davis, PhD’s track record with grants and research in his entire life is impeccable. When you combine the two, it’s a no brainer for anyone honestly looking at the situation and what a real diagnostic test would do for ME/CFS. A diagnostic test is all we need to start a whole snowball of positive outcomes for ME/CFS and long covid patients. With a diagnostic test, prejudice about the illness would almost end overnight because we would have a diagnosed medical condition. No one wants to be seen making fun of or belittling a real medical condition. No one could be put in Psych Wards anywhere because they’d have a medical diagnosis. insurance companies would have to cover medical expenses for ME/CFS because it would be a diagnosed medical condition that would have to be given one of those ridiculous codes in their books. And it would keep snowballing from there.

The nano needle is such a cheap test, it would be available in Lab Corp type labs all around the world. So anyone with ME/CFS like symptoms could simply submit bloodwork and find out if they have ME/CFS in the very early days of getting symptoms, along with testing for things like vitamin levels. It would become a standard test when someone has ME/CFS-like symptoms and every doctor would test for it. And suddenly people would be getting diagnosed all over the world and the true number of affected people with ME/CFS would emerge and I promise you it would be way over the current estimates.

And it would then be impossible for NIH to keep underfunding ME/CFS with all these people having a concrete irrefutable medical diagnosis.

I’ve been saying this for years, it all starts with a diagnostic test. Everything we’ve been fighting for and dreaming of for decades will just start happening, the system will be forced to work for us.

I will have to write a blog piece on this subject as well! Thank you Cort for your wonderful work for our community
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It's good they were able to use an MS control group.

The UK researchers have already used a more robust approach to identify statistically significant differences between the electrical properties in blood from people with ME/CFS compared to healthy and multiple sclerosis (MS) controls (using samples from the UK ME/CFS Biobank).

Their preliminary work suggests that the 2019 results from America are repeatable and can be explored in more detail. Furthermore, that they have the potential to be used as a routine diagnostic test.

The grant will be used to:
  1. Apply the approach to a larger cohort (including mild, moderate, severe ME/CFS, and healthy and MS controls) in the hope that it will result in a reliable, repeatable, and low-cost diagnostic tool using the electrical signature from a simple blood test.
  2. Identify the cellular changes that have occurred in order to create the electrical biomarker and in so doing identify new avenues for potential treatments.
“Both our group and the Davis group have identified electrical variations in ME/CFS cells compared to healthy controls. This is itself highly significant, representing a clear marker of pathology.

“However, we need to probe further to identify exactly what these changes are, and what has caused them. This will shed light on the aetiology of ME/CFS, but more importantly will provide a new tool for those studying the cell from a molecular perspective.

“If we know that cell function – for example, inhibition of a specific kind of ion channel – is responsible for the disease, others can then work to address this, which may offer a therapeutic route for researchers in the field.”

Dr Fatima Labeed
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https://www.meresearch.org.uk/me-re...-aims-to-create-a-diagnostic-test-for-me-cfs/
 
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EndME said:
If I recall correctly @butter. had some knowledge on the nanoneedle for example not being able to differentiate between ME and MS.
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Would be good to know more about this. The blurb from ME Research UK implies that they were able to detect a difference between ME and MS, though I should add that a statistically significant difference between groups does not necessarily mean the test can differentiate in a clinically useful manner.

The UK researchers have already used a more robust approach to identify statistically significant differences between the electrical properties in blood from people with ME/CFS compared to healthy and multiple sclerosis (MS) controls (using samples from the UK ME/CFS Biobank).
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Sid said:
Would be good to know more about this.
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Since none of this is actually "news" the most likely scenario is that Davis' team would have long since somehow collaborated or shared their knowledge/data/findings with the team in the UK, especially concerning difficulties they encountered and negative results or there were reasons for this not to be the case.
 
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