We were pleased to receive funding from PLRC for the following studies:
Characterizing non-restorative sleep in post-viral disease to advance intervention innovations
Drs. Janet Mullington, Robert Thomas, Larissa Engert, Samuel Frank, Monika Haack, Jason Maley, Recep Ozdemir, Haoqi Sun, Alicia Stokes, John Torous, and Brandon M. Westover – Harvard Medical School and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Ronald G. Tompkins Harvard ME/CFS Collaboration
The goal of this project is to characterize several features of sleep regulation in ME/CFS and Long COVID compared with age and sex matched healthy sleep controls. The study will look at four primary components: 1) sleep-circadian dysfunction; 2) how immune function, specifically specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs), are changed in relation to sleep dysfunction; 3) brain electrical activity; and 4) mechanisms of state-boundary control and neurodegenerative diseases.
Systems Biology Approaches to Uncovering Disease Mechanism and Drug Repurposing for Long COVID
Dr. Wenzhong Xiao – Massachusetts General Hospital and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Computational Research Center for Complex Diseases
This project will use deep machine learning and network medicine to parse through clinical information, research findings, and multi-omics data of Long COVID, ME/CFS, and related diseases with the collective knowledge-base of drugs, diseases, genes, and symptoms to discover disease gene modules, and identify potential drugs as candidates for repurposing for these illnesses.
Multi-omic approAches to Solve post-Acute COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 Syndrome
Prof. Alain Moreau – Université de Montréal and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported ME/CFS Collaborative Center at CHU Sainte-Justine/Université de Montréal; Prof. Jonas Bergquist –the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported ME/CFS Collaboration at Uppsala University; Dr. Christopher Armstrong – Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration; Dr. Wenzhong Xiao – Harvard University and the Open Medicine Foundation-Supported Computational Research Center for Complex Diseases; Dr. Dawei Li – Florida Atlantic University; and Dr. Tse Man Sze – Université de Montréal
This project hypothesizes that Long COVID, and ME/CFS after COVID, is the result of a broad molecular-level reorganization occurring primarily at the epigenetic level. The study aims to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of long-term sequelae following a SARS-CoV-2 infection, by looking at 4 specific aims: 1) Global expression profiling of circulating microRNAs, 2) Global DNA methylation profiling, 3) Global proteomic plasma profiling, and 4) Global metabolomic plasma and urine profiling.