Earlier this week we shared MELOPIS, and what it’s starting to find about the brain in ME/CFS. Today, we want to take you inside a different piece of the program: TOTEM.
For most people with ME/CFS, finding a treatment that works is trial and error. As Dr David Fineberg, GP and PhD candidate at the Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration, says:
“We don’t really understand what’s happening with the underlying illness itself. Most people will try several medicines before they get something that is effective.”
TOTEM is trying to change that.
TOTEM was built through the global Open Medicine Foundation network and the leadership of Dr Chris Armstrong at the Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration, with major philanthropic support from the McCusker Charitable Foundation. The platform collects biological data each time a patient changes treatment, builds an AI model from that data, and uses it to predict how a patient is likely to respond to a treatment before they try it.
It is being built with the GPs treating ME/CFS patients and with the patients themselves, because, as David says, “We can’t group them together anymore. They’re a person with ME.”
In this conversation, Chris and David walk through where the science is, what they’re starting to see, and what it could change for patients.
This is what precision medicine looks like for an illness that has never had it.
Support precision medicine research before 30 June.
Every gift of $2 or more is fully tax-deductible.
Thank you for being part of the OMF Australia community.