Official NIH kickoff meeting brings together collaborators

Vicky Whittemore & Joseph Breen

The National Institutes of Health headquarters hosted the leads of the recently funded ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center awards and partner organizations. The purpose of this kickoff meeting was to get to know each other and to begin to discuss collaborative projects that could be undertaken that would leverage each institutional expertise. After introductions, each awardee institution presented an overview of the research proposed, and an executive committee was formed to establish the framework within which data will be shared.

Introduction by Walter Koroshetz, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and chair of the Trans-NIH ME/CFS Working Group

Participants included representatives from:

NIH/NINDS: (Bethesda, MD)
Vicky Whittemore, Program Director
Andrew Breeden, Health Program Specialist
Joanna Vivalda, Clinical Research Project Manager

NIH/NIAID: (Bethesda, MD)
Joseph Breen, Immunoregulation Section Chief, Basic Immunology Branch Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation

Columbia University: (New York City, NY)
W. Ian Lipkin, Project Lead
Diana March, Administrative Lead

The Jackson Laboratory: (Farmington, CT)
Derya Unutmaz, Immunology Lead
Julia Oh, Microbiome Lead
Peter Robinson, Computational Lead
Courtney Gunter, Admin and Patient Advocacy/Outreach Lead

Cornell University: (Ithaca, NY)
Maureen Hanson, Project Lead
Andrew Grimson, Project Lead
Dikoma Shungu, Project  Lead
Fabien Campagne, Data Core Lead
Geoffrey Moore, Clinical Core Co-Lead
Betsy Keller, Clinical Core Co-Lead
Susi Varvayanis, Executive Director

Data Management Coordinating Center (DMCC): (Research Triangle, NC)
Rick Williams, PI, Research Triangle Institute
Becky McNeil, Deputy PI and Analytics Core Lead, RTI International

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR):
Alain Moreau, Director for Research at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center

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