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Emeritus Professor Warren Tate's Research Projects for 2025

(A) A molecular diagnostic test for early diagnosis of ME/CFS and Long COVID

Professor Tate has joined the Pathology Department, Dunedin School of Medicine to link up closely with Associate Professor Chatterjee, NZ’s expert scientist for analysing the DNA methylome of the epigenetic code. Our new project will determine  how the changes of the DNA methylome can be captured to provide a molecular signature for early diagnosis of ME/CFS and Long COVID and for following the course of ongoing disease. The goal is to develop tests accessible to all clinicians and their patients and available in all community Chemical Pathology laboratories. Early definitive diagnosis would mark a significant breakthrough for the disease outcome of ME/CFS and Long COVID patients not only in New Zealand but also globally.

(B) A genetic test for susceptibility to developing ME/CFS and Long COVID

A recent technical breakthrough has revealed certain combinations of naturally occuring genetic variations in the DNA genome can account for most of the samples from ME/CFS patients in the UK biobank. These variations can account for why 5-10% of the population  are susceptible to developing the post-viral sydromes, ME/CFS and Long COVID, when exposed to a triggering stress event. In  preliminary studies we have shown our NZ patients also have some of these combinations of the single base variations. In 2025 we are investigating whether it is possible to develop a test for susceptibility within affected families by establishing a family molecular signature that would indicate high risk or not. We now are recruiting families to test whether such an individual family risk signature can be identified and then used to detect susceptibility among those unaffected family members. It would then be possible for those individuals at risk to take prophylactic protective measures if they were exposed to a typical triggering event like a viral infection or a major stress event, and prevent them succumbing to the long term syndromes.

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