Simon McGrath has written a very nice blog article on study plans from  W. Ian Lipkin and his Collaborative Research Center for ME/CFS at Columbia University.  In the article, Simon discusses how the Columbia CRC will use novel approaches to see if dysbiosis in the gut microbiome is causing changes in ME/CFS patients that could be creating their illness. The scientists in Dr. Lipkin’s group aim to determine the types of bacteria present in the gut microbiome of ME/CFS patients, and also will be measuring the metabolites produced by the bacteria present there to see how they differ from healthy controls. The CRC also hopes to link any changes they see in the microbiome of patients to changes in the immune system. Our group here at JAX initiated a collaboration with Dr. Lipkin’s Center and will be performing high resolution profiling and functionality of immune cells in the same patients. It will thus be very interesting to determine how the immune system is linked to the microbiota through these ME/CFS Center collaborations.

To read the full article on ME/CFS Research Review blog, click here.