Advances in ME/CFS Research and Clinical Care, a series of 24 papers on ME/CFS published in 2018-2019 in the online (open access, peer-reviewed) journals Frontiers in Neurology and Frontiers in Pediatrics, is in the running to win a $100,000 prize! The prize money must be used to fund a scientific conference on the topic. If it wins, Ken Friedman, the topic editor, has indicated he will donate the money to the IACFS/ME to help fund their 2020 International conference!
The editors of Frontiers determine the winner of the prize; there is no nomination process. The
most active, collaborative and impactful Research Topics from the last
year are shortlisted and then the Jury, drawn from members of the
Frontiers Editorial Board, is tasked with choosing the final winner.
Finalists are selected and judged on scientific and editorial
excellence, international reach, subject novelty, and
interdisciplinarity of their Research Topic.
An
important factor is the interest the topic generates around the world,
based on article views and downloads, citations, and international
reach. We can help by viewing/downloading articles, and encouraging others to do so, especially viewers outside the U.S.
It
also helps to post article links on Facebook or Twitter, retweet, and
discuss in blogs and on Reddit and Google+. All these metrics are
tracked and count toward the impact score.
For a complete list of papers with links, visit https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/7718/advances-in-mecfs-research-and-clinical-care#articles. This special issue was edited by Drs. Kenneth Friedman, Cindy Bateman, Alison Bested and Zaher Nahle.
The
papers will be collected and published as a monograph, and cover a wide
variety of topics in ME/CFS research. Find several that you are
interested in and click away!
- A
brief history of the struggle for recognition of ME/CFS as a disease,
and the struggles to establish ME/CFS research and clinical care
- Identifying the cause or trigger(s) of ME/CFS
- Case
definition: What symptoms best characterize the disease? What symptoms
are mandatory to diagnose ME/CFS? How can we make diagnosis as easy as
possible for the clinician?
- Methodologies for validating a ME/CFS diagnosis
- A new method to determine the number of individuals within a given population who suffer from the disease
- A
sampling of current, ongoing ME/CFS laboratory research: microbiome,
the role of neuroinflammation and cytokines, using a bio-bank to study
tissue abnormalities
- Clinical research
- Challenges of providing healthcare to the ME/CFS population
- Special needs of pediatric and adolescent patients
Last year’s winner received more than 80 citations, 70,000 views and 9,000 downloads, and one of the papers was featured in The Washington Post. The
2017 winner brought together 630 authors, publishing 149 papers and
receiving more than 1.2 million views and downloads. So far, the ME/CFS
topic has nearly 140,000 views.
We
know that Dr. Anthony Komaroff’s recent paper on ME/CFS in the Journal
of the American Medical Association was one of the top five in JAMA in
July, so there is great interest right now in ME/CFS. Let’s help
publicize these papers and generate even more interest!
Here is a shorter version for Facebook or Twitter, if you could post this also.
This
series of 24 of open-access, peer-reviewed articles on ME/CFS that
appeared in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics in 2018-19, is in the
running to win a $100,000 prize based upon the decision of the editorial
board, BUT INFLUENCED BY READER INTEREST (clicks, downloads,
shares)…so please click, share or download: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/7718/advances-in-mecfs-research-and-clinical-care#articles
Thank you!
Charmian Proskauer
Massachusetts ME/CFS & FM Association
U.S. Action Working Group
