Open Medicine Foundation Australia Ltd (OMFAU) is a regional branch entity of Open Medicine Foundation, and is part of the largest, concerted worldwide non-profit effort to diagnose, treat and find a cure for ME/CFS.
OMF Australia is a Public Ancillary Fund, established for the purpose of promoting and funding research into chronic complex diseases.
OMF Australia supports the Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration, the 5th addition to our global network of OMF funded CRCs that include Harvard, Stanford, Uppsala, and Montreal Universities.
We are tremendously grateful for the generous support from Emerge Australia, our Australian partner. Emerge Australia is a national organization providing information, support, and advocacy for people with ME/CFS — giving hope and help to more than 250,000 Australians living with the disease.
Christopher Armstrong, PhD directs the Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration. It seeks to develop a disease management and treatment approach that focuses on the individual patient and the biology that underlies their disease. The research will look for unifying biological pathways of ME/CFS that cause the disease experience to be the same between patients while also identifying biological aspects that produce different disease experiences between patients.
FOUNDATION BOARD
William Ranken, Chairman
Heidi Nicholl, Public Officer
Kimberly Hicks, Treasurer
Linda Tannenbaum, Founder & Director
Peter Thompson, Director
CONTACT
Open Medicine Foundation Australia
C/O – Accru Melbourne Pty Ltd
50 Camberwell Road, Hawthorn East VIC 3124
ABN: 82 767 926 736
Christopher Armstrong, PhD, was OMF’s Science Liaison and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford, completed his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Melbourne, and has been involved with researching ME/CFS for over a decade. An Australian native, he is perfectly positioned to lead and grow this new research hub for years to come.
Dr. Armstrong is recognized for his research using metabolomics to observe biochemical alterations in ME/CFS patients. He began his work in this field at the University of Melbourne, completing his PhD in applying metabolomics to study ME/CFS. He published his first ME/CFS metabolomics study on blood and urine in 2015.
Since then, he has set up collaborative efforts to apply metabolomics to immunological experiments on ME/CFS, observing how metabolism may relate to immune cell function. He has also focused on longitudinal research while looking to extend metabolic capabilities across the ME/CFS field to help collate different patient groups.
Under Dr. Armstrong’s direction, the team at OMFAU will conduct a ground-breaking research program to develop a personalized medicine approach used to track the development of ME/CFS, understand the biology of the disease process in the individual, and monitor outcomes in treatment trials.
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS) affects over 20 million people.
Established in 2012, Open Medicine Foundation (OMF) leads the largest, concerted worldwide nonprofit effort to diagnose, treat, and prevent ME / CFS and related chronic, complex diseases such as Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), Fibromyalgia and Post COVID.
OMF Australia adds urgency to the search for answers by driving transformational philanthropy and investments into global research.
Open Medicine Foundation®
29302 Laro Drive, Agoura Hills, CA 91301 USA
Phone: 650-242-8669
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Averting a second pandemic:
Open Medicine Foundation leads groundbreaking international study of
Long COVID’s conversion to ME/CFS
AGOURA HILLS, CALIF. — Open Medicine Foundation (OMF) is leading a large-scale international collaborative study investigating the potential conversion of Post-Acute Sequelae SARS-CoV-2 infection — more commonly known as Long COVID or Post-COVID Syndrome — to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), a chronic, life-altering disease with no known cause, diagnostic test or FDA approved treatments available.
Up to 2.5 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from ME/CFS; the COVID-19 pandemic could at least double that number. An estimated 35 percent of Americans who had COVID-19 have failed to fully recover several months after infection, prompting many to call it “a potential second pandemic.”
OMF recognized a familiar health crisis emerging, one with eerie similarities to ME/CFS. This crisis presented a unique opportunity to understand how a viral infection — in this case COVID-19 — may develop into ME/CFS in some patients. The goal is to find targeted treatments for ME/CFS patients and ultimately prevent its onset in people infected with SARS-CoV-2 or other infections.
The federal government is only now investing in Post-COVID research, with no focus on its connection to ME/CFS. OMF has already engaged researchers for the largest-scale study of its kind, solely supported by private donors who have contributed over one million dollars to date. When fully funded, the five million dollar, three-year study will be conducted across the globe at OMF funded Collaborative Research Centers, led by some of the world’s top researchers and ME/CFS experts.
BACKGROUND
In a significant percentage of patients, infections preceded their development of ME/CFS. For example, according to the CDC about one in ten infected with Epstein-Barr virus, Ross River virus, or Coxiella burnetti develop symptoms that meet the criteria for ME/CFS.
THE STUDY
The ability to follow the development of ME/CFS from a known viral infection is unprecedented to date and crucial to researchers’ understanding of the disease. The focus of this study is to find the biological differences between persons returning to good health after COVID-19 and persons who remained ill more than six months after infection and developed ME/CFS. Understanding these alterations in key pathways can lead to groundbreaking discoveries including new biomarkers, drug targets, and prevention and treatment strategies.
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About Open Medicine Foundation
Established in 2012, Open Medicine Foundation leads the largest, concerted worldwide nonprofit effort to diagnose, treat, and prevent ME/CFS and related chronic, complex diseases such as Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and Post COVID. OMF adds urgency to the search for answers by driving transformational philanthropy into global research. We have raised over $28 Million from private donors and facilitated and funded the establishment of five prestigious ME/CFS Collaborative Research Centers around the world. To learn more, visit www.omf.ngo.
CONTACT:
Heather Ah San
Development and Communications Manager
1-650-242-8669