Sep 16 Update: A post on XMRV Global Action's Facebook site has reported a notice from the CFIDS Assoc. indicating that the findings of the study of virus involvement in ME/CFS patient samples, led by Columbia University 'virus hunter' Ian Lipkin, MD, will be released in the wee hours, at 12:01 AM Eastern Time Tuesday Sep 18 (9:01 PM Sep 17, Pacific Time). It will be published by the open access journal mBio (http://mBio.asm.org).
Also preceding the planned Tuesday morning Columbia press conference described below, Dr. Lipkin will discuss the study results in a special episode of the netcast that colleague Dr. Vicent Racaniello hosts - "This Week in Virology" - to begin at 12:01 AM Eastern Time (http://www.twiv.tv).
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Apparently the press event that Columbia announced last week...
...will still be streamed live starting at 10:30 AM Eastern Time (7:30 AM Pacific) on Tuesday, September 18, according to Columbia's Center for Infection and Immunity (CII).
The live press conference will be found on the CII website (www.cii.columbia.edu).
See the full announcement of this press event below.
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CII Press Conference September 18th, 2012
10:30 AM (EDT) and 7:30 AM Pacific Time
“Multicenter Study on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis”
The causes of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) have long eluded scientists. In 2009/2010, two high-profile papers linked the syndrome to infection with a mouse retrovirus called XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related virus) and murine retrovirus-like sequences (designated pMLV: polytropic MLV). Given that affected patients often have symptoms consistent with a chronic infection, this viral connection was deemed plausible, and the findings were celebrated as a major achievement for a complex disease that afflicts nearly 1 million in the U.S.
However, follow-up investigations by several laboratories were unable to detect XMRV or pMLV in CFS patients.
To definitively resolve this issue, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases commissioned a large-scale, multicenter study under the auspices of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH’s National Cancer Institute and Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, and others (see full list below).
Investigators from the multicenter study on CFS/ME and XMRV/pMLV will discuss their findings and future directions. A live video will be posted below [CII blog page - http://cii.columbia.edu/blog.htm?cid=tM5E7V?].
For attendance at the event, members of the media should RSVP by 9:00 AM on Monday, Sept. 17th to Nsikan Akpan (212-342-9051 | nea2107@columbia.edu) or Stephanie Berger, Mailman School of Public Health (212-305-4372 | sb2247@columbia.edu).
WHEN: Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Press Conference begins at 10:30 AM (EDT)
WHO: W. Ian Lipkin, MD (Moderator)
Center for Infection and Immunity (CII), Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
• Principal Investigator and Director of Center for Infection and Immunity
• John Snow Professor of Epidemiology
• Professor of Neurology and Pathology
Harvey Alter, MD
National Institutes of Health, Department of Transfusion Medicine
• Distinguished NIH Investigator
• Chief, Clinical Studies
• Associate Director of Research
Mady Hornig, MD
Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
• Director of Translational Research at CII
• Associate Professor of Epidemiology
Judy Mikovits, PhD
Mikovits Consulting
Francis Ruscetti, PhD
National Cancer Institute, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research
• Head, Leukocyte Biology Section
• Senior Investigator
Collaborating Research Groups:
Department of Transfusion Medicine, Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD.
Mikovits Consulting, Oxnard, CA.
Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.
Cancer and Inflammation Program, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD.
Tissue Safety Laboratory, Office of Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, Bethesda, MD.
Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale FL.
Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Miami, FL.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA.
Infectious Disease Clinic, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.
Fatigue Consultation Clinic, Salt Lake City, UT.
Levine Clinic, New York, NY.
Simmaron Research Institute, Incline Village, NV.
Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Center for Infection and Immunity, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Tufts University, Boston, MA.
