

I can promise we will be providing cutting edge research and care, and educating providers like never before.





Dr. Nancy Klimas



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Focus On Mary Fletcher…Mary Fletcher is indeed an unsung hero. Unlike Dr. Klimas she is not an MD - she’s a Ph.D, a researcher pure and simple - and with over 200 research citations to her name - she’s done lots of it. The Director of the E. M. Papper Laboratory of Clinical Immunology at the Univ. of Miami since its start 20 years ago, Dr. Fletcher serves on the Boards of several medical journals. Focusing mostly on HIV and CFS, she’s maintained a close interest in natural killer cell functioning, the stress response and stress in both disorders (NK cells are particularly sensitive to stress). In 2002 she developed a new way to measure perforin in NK cells.



Present at every CFS conference, Dr. Fletcher is known for her tendency to call CFS 'CSF'. She won the ‘Research Excellence Award’ at the IACFS/ME Conference in Ottawa in 2011.​ …Mary Fletcher is indeed an unsung hero. Unlike Dr. Klimas she is not an MD - she’s a Ph.D, a researcher pure and simple - and with over 200 research citations to her name - she’s done lots of it. The Director of the E. M. Papper Laboratory of Clinical Immunology at the Univ. of Miami since its start 20 years ago, Dr. Fletcher serves on the Boards of several medical journals. Focusing mostly on HIV and CFS, she’s maintained a close interest in natural killer cell functioning, the stress response and stress in both disorders (NK cells are particularly sensitive to stress). In 2002 she developed a new way to measure perforin in NK cells.Present at every CFS conference, Dr. Fletcher is known for her tendency to call CFS 'CSF'. She won the ‘Research Excellence Award’ at the IACFS/ME Conference in Ottawa in 2011.​

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Dr. Nancy Klimas​

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Phoenix Rising Team submitted a new blog post:Posted by Cort JohnsonDr. Klimas recently left the University of Miami to head up a new Institute dedicated to researching chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and Gulf War Illness at Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Klimas worked at the Univ. of Miami for 27 years; they gave her a space and a platform for her ME/CFS research, and for that we must be grateful, but they were never an eager partner. Nova Southeastern University (NSU), however, sounds like it's eager to make a difference in this field.Dr. Klimas was known at the federal advisory panel for CFS (CFSAC) for her ability to see large opportunities and that hasn’t changed. She pictures the Institute as a hub of collaboration and innovation and as a partner in a national/international clinical trials network. (The idea of a formal CFS Clinical Trials Network is in the air. When Kim McCleary (CAA) called for development of such a network at the last CFSAC meeting, she pointed out that several pieces of the infrastructure needed to build it were in fact developed during the government’s response to XMRV.)Dr. Klimas also held out the possibility of the specialist ME/CFS clinic at NSU expanding to the other NSU campuses across the country. She’ll use a sophisticated electronic medical records system to track progress in patient groups.I made a decision to look at other sites about 2 years ago. I was looking at several universities, but NSU appealed for a number of reasons. First they have a different way of doing business - a less round peg in square hole type thinking. My major issue was "silo thinking"; research in one place, clinics in another, teaching as an add-on and everyone on a multi-disciplinary team answering to different chairs and different departments - the traditional academic way of doing things. I wanted a single place where everyone worked together on the complex mission of research and education and clinical care. And I wanted to be the boss, no extra layers of division chiefs and department chairs.NSU saw the potential to achieve so much more with this model. They are considering actually building the basic science lab right next to the clinic so that the entire team can work closely together! Imagine if the PhD's split a pizza with the clinicians: "I saw a case today that really puzzled me. What do you think could allow someone to make an immune response to one virus, but not another" … before you know it you have a brainstorming session that connects the basic scientists to real people, real cases. Things really move along.I think so. I can promise we will be providing cutting edge research and care, and educating providers like never before. They are also familiar with the illness. I have met several staff members with the diagnosis, and members of the leadership team also have had friends with the illness or family members with the illness.I think our work with Gulf War Illness is also striking a cord. We all want to do right by our veterans and armed forces personnel, and Gulf War Illness is every bit as miserable an experience as ME/CFS.Oh there are many steps in this particular dream. We start with a second clinic, more staffing, integrating education and research every step of the way. But NSU has many campuses nationally and internationally (look it up!) and if we are successful in these early steps, particularly with clinician training, we could grow.No, there is a major fundraising effort, but they are committed to endowing the Institute with a long range philanthropic campaign.Recruitment is underway so I shouldn't really be naming names. But 3 more research-focused individuals, but at least one senior person, and two to mentor and grow.Well, we have certainly moved our focus to a systems biology approach, and it is bearing fruit. I submitted two protocols over the summer to test therapies that our computational models suggest as reasonable targets for intervention. (More on that if I am funded.) But, as you might imagine, we are multidisciplinary; there are many specialties, and many different potential approaches to ME/CFS.I am very keen to work to develop a clinical trials group nationally/internationally using our assessment platform as a cost effective and efficient way to test intervention impact. I am also keen to use the EMR as a tool to track clinical interventions' "clinical practice" and impact...more on that in the future as well. It’s early yet. The Dean of the College of Medicine, Anthony Silvagni, is clearly committed to the education message, as is Fred Lippman, Chancellor of Nova Southeastern University's Health Professions Division which includes all of the health sciences - PA, ARNP, RN, Pharmacy etc. Initially we will have students of all sorts in our clinics, and I expect we will find our way into the curriculum in a number of ways, from classroom teaching, patient/doctor case demonstrations, etc. I am hoping to find faculty keen to jump on the research bandwagon as well, both in collaborations with established investigators and by mentoring young faculty in the various schools.I would encourage you and your readers to help us with these plans. We are a systems biology/multidisciplinary/integrative/ whole body kind of research group. So we would like to see people who can help put the whole picture together - connecting neuro-imaging people with inflammation researchers, connecting genomics/proteomics with drug discovery and drug "repurposing" experts, pulling in experts from neurotoxicology into the field. We need outside investigators to make them into inside investigators!We are excited about using web based platforms to house assessment and biologic data. I have some very cool ideas on this, but this too is too soon to share. (But stay tuned.) CASA is coming along nicely, but not yet fully formed. We have launched, with CFI's sponsorship, the RedCap platform and a common set of instruments to look at many domains of illness (e.g., sleep, pain, fatigue, function) and are using this in the CFIDS Association sponsored Biobank study.NSU through the Institute is happy to host this and other RedCap based assessment tools for investigators who need this support. We will also offer other data management/ stats core support for multicenter studies. Redcap is up and running thanks to an amazing IT team at NSU with some advice from the inventors at Vanderbilt. The rest will come along as we settle in.Nothing could hurt that partnership. Dr Fletcher is the unsung hero - I was delighted that she received the research award at IACFS/ME Ottawa. She has worked on this non-stop, often 7 days a week and late at night for decades. I get all the credit for her hard work. She continues to co-direct my labs at the Miami VA Medical Center.That PhD/MD partnership is a tremendously powerful thing, and working with an exacting scientist like Mary Ann Fletcher guarantees the quality of the data and a very strong scientific method. She will remain at University of Miami as the scientific director of the research program still based at UM. This includes the PNI research group with Mike Antoni, Barry Hurwitz and Neil Schneiderman, as well as the very strong genomics team at the Hussman Institute.Persistence pays off? I think the advocacy community has done much to push for more, and have begun to find ways to fund bigger programs through private funds. Philanthropy has put more into this field than the federal government; thank goodness for generous souls. I also think the XMRV findings, as hard as that has been, put a human face on the illness for policy makers and researchers.We have had some important and effective very good friends as we become more established as a field. Wanda Jones did a tremendous job behind the scenes, and HHS as an agency is far more pro-active than ever before. I am very pleased with the make up of the CFSAC, and the working group established within HHS to find funding through the various agencies. I wish I had 3 grant writers right now. I think there are ways to fund research, education, and clinical care that we have not yet touched.Dr. Klimas had this to say about Phoenix Rising