Description
Speakers:
“Research Hope for Me & Fibromyalgia” – Linda Tannenbaum MB. CEO of Open Medicine Foundation (USA)
With years of executive management experience as a clinical laboratory scientist, Ms. Tannenbaum owned and ran a successful independent clinical laboratory for over 21 years before starting two non-profits to raise funds for ME/CFS research. Fulfilling a promise to their daughter, who came down with sudden onset ME/CFS at the age of 16 in 2006, Ms. Tannenbaum and her husband had started their first non-profit Neuro-Immune Disease Alliance (NIDA) to raise funds from family and friends. Ms. Tannenbaum soon realized that open, global collaborative research was lacking and founded Open Medicine Foundation (OMF) in 2012 to take the efforts to a much larger level to fund and facilitate large research projects to find a cure for ME/CFS and other similar chronic illnesses. Ms. Tannenbaum received her degree in Bacteriology from UCLA in 1978 and her Clinical Laboratory Scientist/Medical Technology license in 1979.
“ME/CFS: Are We Closing in on the Disease Mechanisms and is Better Treatment Soon Available?” Professor Olav Mella Bergen University Hospital (Norway).
Olav Mella, is director of the oncology department at Haukeland University Hospital, Norway, and Øystein Fluge, a researcher and oncologist, from the same hospital.
Along with Øystein Fluge, a researcher and oncologist, from the same hospital, he is conducting a phase III trial of rituximab in chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis patients. Professor Mella and Dr Fluge have published a paper “Benefit from B-Lymphocyte Depletion Using the Anti-CD20 Antibody Rituximab in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. A double-Blind and Placebo-Controlled Study“.
“ME: Past, Present & Future” – Dr William Weir FRCP, FRCP (Edin). Consultant Physician (UK)
Dr Weir qualified from St Andrews and Dundee University Medical School 1972. He has held Senior House Officer posts in Nephrology, Cardiology, Neurology, and Chest Medicine. During his senior career he worked in The Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London. and later at the Royal Free Hospital where he was appointed a Consultant in Infectious Diseases (+ Trop Medicine) RFH 1987. Dr Weir also spend two years at Ahmadu Bello University Medical School in Nigeria. Although formally retired, he now does freelance consultancy work in hospitals around the UK. He has a longstanding interest in ME and is Medical Advisor to Hope 4 ME & Fibro NI. Dr Weir now regularly sees ME patients privately, and advises on disease management and treatment.
“The UK PACE Trial: An exploration of the “evidence” for graded exercise therapy for ME” – David Tuller, DrPH (USA)
David is the academic coordinator of University of California Berkeley’s joint masters program in public health and journalism. He frequently writes for The New York Times; and in 2016, was recipient of both the IACFS/ME Special Service Award – for Outstanding Personal Effort and Contribution and the Tymes Trust Award for Scientific Journalism.
“ME & Fibromyalgia Care in Northern Ireland – Recent Developments” – Dr Christine McMaster, Consultant in the Public Health Agency
Dr McMaster, is currently supporting efforts to improve health services for ME patients in Northern Ireland. She will offer a progress report since her work on this, and collaboration with the charity trustees, commenced in November 2016.
