One idea about why people get ME/CFS is that their own immune system starts to attack their own body. The team has already tested this idea by studying people with long-COVID, which is similar to ME/CFS in many ways. When they took antibodies from long-COVID patients and gave them to mice, the mice got sick just like people with long-COVID. The goal of this subproject is to use the same approach but with antibodies from people who have ME/CFS. If they are able to find that the mice also get sick, it would show that ME/CFS happens because the body’s immune system is not working correctly (autoimmunity). This could help doctors diagnose ME/CFS by checking for these antibodies in the blood. Additionally, if it’s possible to make the mice develop ME/CFS symptoms, they can then be used to test different medicines to see if any of them can help people with ME/CFS.
This is the team
