AGENDAS

The ME/CFS Research Roadmap webinars are virtual events open to the public during which ME/CFS experts will present current research, knowledge gaps, and future research opportunities for ME/CFS. Each webinar will include opportunities for questions, comments, and new ideas from interested stakeholders and the broader ME/CFS community, including researchers, clinicians, advocates, those living with ME/CFS, and others.

Each webinar is limited to 500 participants.

Each webinar will be recorded and will be available, along with a full transcript, on the NANDS website at NANDSC ME/CFS Research Roadmap Working Group page.

Nervous System

Friday August 25^th

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
10:00 AM ET	Introduction	Vicky Whittemore, PhD NIH/NINDS Webinar Moderator: Jarred Younger, PhD
10:05 AM ET	Lived Experience	Trisha Fisher
10:10 AM ET	Talk 1: Cognition	Gudrun Lange, PhD Pain & Fatigue Study Center
10:35 AM ET	Talk 2: Dysautonomia	Peter Rowe, MD Johns Hopkins Medicine
11:00 AM ET	Talk 3: Cerebral Spinal Fluid Studies	Jonas Bergquist, MD, PhD ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center at Uppsala University
11:20 AM ET	*Break*
11:35 AM ET	Talk 4: Neuroimaging	Jarred Younger, PhD University of Alabama at Birmingham
12:00 PM ET	Talk 5: Sleep	Janet Mullington, PhD Harvard Medical School
12:25 PM ET	*Break*
12:40 PM ET	Talk 6: Peripheral Nervous System	Peter Novak, MD, PhD Brigham and Women’s Hospital
1:05 PM ET	Panel Discussion	Moderators: Jarred Younger, PhD and Vicky Whittemore, PhD
1:55 PM ET	Conclusion	Vicky Whittemore, PhD
2:00 PM ET	*Adjourn*

Immune System

Thursday October 19^th

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
11:00 AM ET	Introductions	Vicky Whittemore, PhD; NIH/NINDS
11:10 AM ET	Clinical Immunology of ME/CFS	Nancy Klimas, MD; Nova Southeastern University
12:00 PM ET	Evidence for autoimmunity in ME/CFS	Carmen Scheibenbogen, MD; Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin
12:40 PM ET	Immune cell-type approaches to identify mechanisms of ME/CFS	Maureen Hanson, PhD; Cornell University
1:15 PM ET	Break
1:30 PM ET	Predictive and mechanistic insights into immune perturbations during ME/CFS	Derya Unutmaz, MD; Jackson Laboratories
2:05 PM ET	Gut-Immune-Metabolic Interplay in ME/CFS	Armin Alaedini, PhD; Columbia University
2:25 PM ET	Lived Experience	Angela Termini
2:35 PM ET	Lived Experience	Tracy Duvall
2:40 PM ET	Research Priorities, What is translatable clinically?	Moderator: Vicky Whittemore, PhD
2:55 PM ET	Closing Remarks	Vicky Whittemore, PhD
3:00 PM ET	*Adjourn*

Metabolism

Thursday October 26^th

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
11:00 AM ET	Welcome remarks	Vicky Whittemore, PhD Program Director, National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
	Session 1	Alain Moreau, PhD (moderator) Université de Montréal, Canada
11:05 AM ET	Speaker 1: “Lived Perspective of a Patient – Progress Made via Self-education, Determination, Self-tracking, and Analysis”	Chris Wikman Patient-partner
11:20 AM ET	Speaker 2: “The interplay between metabolism and immunology in ME/CFS”	Shuzhao Li, PhD Jackson Laboratories, USA
12:00 PM ET	Speaker 3: “Investigations and Consequences of Altered Metabolism in ME/CFS Immune Cells”	Jessica Maya, PhD Post-doctoral fellow / Dr. Maureen Hanson’s Lab Cornell University, USA
12:30 PM ET	Speaker 4: “Single-cell Raman technologies for diagnosis and investigation of ME/CFS immune cells”	Jiaboa Xu, PhD University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
1:10 PM ET	Break
	Session 2	Alain Moreau, PhD (moderator) Université de Montréal, Canada
1:40 PM ET	Speaker 5: “Studying Metabolomics in ME/CFS – A Computational Perspective”	Wenzhong Xiao, PhD Harvard School of Medicine, Boston, USA
2:20 PM ET	Speaker 6: “Microbial metabolism in ME/CFS pathogenesis: The state of supporting evidence and prevailing knowledge gaps”	Brent Williams, PhD Columbia University, New York City, USA
3:00 PM ET	Speaker 7: “Metabolic characterisation of biofluids in ME/CFS”	Chris Armstrong, PhD Melbourne University, Melbourne, Australia
3:40 PM ET	Closing remarks	Vicky Whittemore, PhD Program Director, National Institutes of Health National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
3:45 PM ET	Adjourn

Genomics/Genetic Susceptibilities

Wednesday November 1^st

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
11:00 AM ET	Opening remarks	Vicky Whittemore, PhD NINDS
11:05 AM ET		Oved Amitay, PhD Solve M.E.
11:08 AM ET	Lived experience Perspective	Hayla Sluss, PhD University of Massachusetts
	Session 1: Large data-sets and Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS)
11:15 AM ET	Genetic risk factors of ME/CFS: a critical review (GWAS)	Chris Ponting, PhD University of Edinburgh
11:45 AM ET	Combinatorial analysis of Genetic Risk Factors for ME/CFS, UK Biobank	Stephen Gardner, PhD PrecisionLife
12:10 PM ET	Genetic susceptibility in Long Covid and ME/CFS: Long COVID Host Genetics Initiative (international network)	Hanna Ollila, PhD University of Helsinki Vilma Lammi, PhD University of Helsinki Anniina Maria Tervi, PhD University of Helsinki
12:35 PM ET	The use of Large public biobanks for genotype/phenotype analysis: Industry perspective	Slavé Petrovski, PhD AstraZeneca
12:55 PM ET	Q&A
1:05 PM ET	Break
	Session 2: Enriched cohorts and Epigenetics
1:25 PM ET	Characterizing the Genetic Basis of ME/CFS through Case-Control and Family Studies	Fereshteh Jahaniani, PhD Stanford Varuna Chander, PhD Stanford
1:50 PM ET	Contribution of Epigenomics to ME/CFS Pathogenesis: Past, Present and Future	Alain Moreau, PhD Université de Montréal
2:20 PM ET	Closing remarks	Kristina Allen-Brady, PhD University of Utah
2:35 PM ET	Adjourn

Chronic infections

Thursday November 30^th

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
11:00 AM ET	Introduction	Vicky Whittemore, PhD NIH/NINDS
11:05 AM ET	Lived Experience	David Holcomb
11:15 AM ET	Chronic infection in Long COVID	Michael Peluso, MD, MHS University of California San Francisco
11:50 AM ET	Discussion
12:00 PM ET	Chronic infection in ME/CFS: non-Herpes viruses	Maureen Hanson, PhD Cornell University
12:40 PM ET	Discussion
12:50 PM ET	Break
1:15 PM ET	Infection/reactivation of herpesviruses and ME/CFS	Anthony Komaroff, MD Harvard
1:55 PM ET	Discussion
2:05 PM ET	Endogenous retroviruses and ME/CFS	Prof. Simon Carding Quadrum Institute, University of East Anglia
2:30 PM ET	Discussion
2:40 PM ET	Adjourn

Physiology

Friday December 8^th

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
11:00 AM ET	Introduction	Vicky Whittemore, PhD NIH/NINDS
11:05 AM ET	Illuminating Whole Body Immune Responses In ME/CFS Using PET	Michele James, PhD Stanford University
11:30 AM ET	The Cell Danger Response	Robert Naviaux, MD, PhD University of California, San Diego
11:55 AM ET	Update on the Itaconate Shunt Hypothesis	Rob Phair, PhD Integrative Informatics
12:15 PM ET	Lived experience: searching for mechanisms of ME/CFS in other conditions	Dominic Stanculescu Independent Researcher, Belgium
12:35 PM ET	Consensus report on what is refreshing sleep?	Rebecca Robbins, PhD Harvard Medical School
12:50 PM ET	Non-refreshing Sleep	Maiken Nedergaard, MD, DMSc University of Rochester and University of Copenhagen
1:15 PM ET	BREAK
1:30 PM ET	Metabolism and ME/CFS	Karl Tronstad, PhD University of Bergen
1:55 PM ET	BH4: a potential culprit	Ron Davis, PhD Stanford University
2:20 PM ET	Extracellular vesicles	Ludovic Giloteaux, PhD Cornell University
2:45 PM ET	Overall discussion
3:00 PM ET	Adjourn

Lesser Studied Pathologies

Friday January 5^th

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
11:00 AM ET	Introduction and welcome	Vicky Whittemore, PhD NIH/NINDS Beth Pollack MIT
11:05 AM ET	Lesser Studied Pathologies: Overview; Prevalence and Comorbidities Inclusion in Research	Beth Pollack MIT
11:15 AM ET	Connective Tissue Disorders, Spinal Conditions, and ME/CFS	Ilene Ruhoy, MD, PhD Mount Sinai South Nassau
11:55 AM ET	Break
12:05 PM ET	Tethered Cord Syndrome	Petra Klinge, MD, PhD Brown University
12:30 PM ET	Mast Cell Activation Disorders and ME/CFS	Anne Maitland, MD, PhD Mount Sinai
12:55 PM ET	Neurosurgical Conditions in ME/CFS	Julie Rehmeyer
1:00 PM ET	Break
1:10 PM ET	Gastrointestinal Dysfunction in ME/CFS: The Role of the Neuroimmune Axis	Laura Pace, MD, PhD University of Utah
1:40 PM ET	ME/CFS and Female Reproductive Health	Beth Pollack MIT
1:45 PM ET	ME/CFS and Neuroendocrinology	Natalie Thomas, PhD The University of Melbourne
1:55 PM ET	Endometriosis & ME/CFS	Emelia von Saltza
2:00 PM ET	Reproductive Health in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)	Roumiana Boneva, MD, PhD CDC Elizabeth Unger, MD, PhD CDC
2:20 PM ET	Break
2:25 PM ET	Panel discussion with all speakers
2:50 PM ET	Closing Remarks	Beth Pollack MIT Vicky Whittemore, PhD NIH/NINDS
3:00 PM ET	Adjourn

Circulation

Thursday January 11^th

Time	Topic	Speakers/Moderators
11:00 AM ET	Introduction	Vicky Whittemore, PhD NIH/NINDS
11:10 AM ET	Lived Experience	Gwynn Dujardin
11:25 AM ET	Endotheliitis	Jane Mitchell, PhD Imperial College London
11:55 AM ET	Microclots	Resia Pretorius, PhD Stellenbosch University
12:25 PM ET	BREAK
12:35 PM ET	Hypovolemia	Frans Visser, MD Stichting Cardiozorg
1:05 PM ET	Cerebral blood flow	Linda Van Campen, MD Stichting Cardiozorg
1:35 PM ET	BREAK
1:45 PM ET	RBC abnormalities	Jiandi Wan, PhD University of California, Davis
2:15 PM ET	Neurovascular Dysregulation	David Systrom, Jr, MD Brigham & Women’s Hospital Harvard
2:45 PM ET	Discussion
3:00 PM ET	Adjourn