Thread by @Rivkatweets

VERY EXCITING! Drs. Liisa Selin & Anna Gil, of the Univ. of Massachusetts Medical school, now have a fundraising webpage. Please folks, support this two-woman research lab investigating #MEcfs, #LongCovid, EBV & more. Details on their "Classy" webpage. - give.classy.org/SelinImmunolog…

The Selin Lab, a two-woman lab, gets a lot done! Read all about it on their "Classy" webpage. Top immunologists and ME/CFS researchers have told me they think the Selin Lab is on to something big. give.classy.org/SelinImmunolog…

"We are driven to conduct research that will translate into tangible help, perhaps even a biomarker &treatments. There are already millions in the US w/ ME/CFS. Millions more will soon be presenting w/Long COVID. We will be happy if our work offers them concrete help."--Dr. Selin

"Tell ME/CFS and Long COVID patients this: You feel exhausted for a reason; your CD8 T cells are exhausted -- immunologically exhausted. Yes, that's a technical term. And, best of all, it can be measured."

-- Liisa Selin, MD, PhD, UMass Medical School

"Your exhaustion may be saving your life. In our lab, we can see what your immune system looks like. & it looks like an LCMV (lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus) clonally exhausted mouse. These mice are well known in science. Their abnormal, overwhelming T cell response would..."

"...kill them, if not for their immune system, which comes to the rescue by creating T-cell exhaustion. So, in short, the T-cell exhaustion you experience may be saving your life."

-- Liisa Selin, MD, PhD, UMass Medical School

Note from Dr. Selin on why her lab needs your donations: "We are fortunate to have been awarded NIH funding (an R01 grant) to investigate the basic science mechanisms in the immune-pathogenesis of ME/CFS. However, this award allows us to investigate only a relatively small..."

"...number of blood samples from patient donors. Thus, we are in great need of additional funding. With this additional funding, we will be able to expand our work to more blood donors, and we will be able to make our work more translational. By translational, we mean that..."

"...with additional funding we could be in a position to 1) adapt our biomarker assay into a clinically do-able test -- that is, a less labor-intensive test that doctors can order from a clinical lab, and 2) we could conduct clinical trials with potential treatment..."

"...interventions. These two things, a biomarker assay coupled with clinical trials, will help inform our entire community in developing clinical protocols for testing and treating large numbers of patients with post-viral illnesses, such as..."

"...ME/CFS, Long COVID, and chronic Lyme disease. Your funding will help us achieve these goals. Thank you for considering donating to our lab."

-- Liisa Selin, MD, PhD, Univ. Massachusetts Medical School