In 2019, Professor Ron Davis from America reported that researchers had developed a nanoelectronics test that could detect an impedance in white blood cells taken from people with ME/CFS1.

They felt their findings could represent a diagnostic marker, but since then there hasn’t been any further research in this area. ME Research UK and the ME Association have jointly funded a new 12-month study that will build upon these initial findings.

The research grant has been awarded to Professor Robert Dorey, Dr Fatima Labeed and Professor Michael Hughes from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Surrey, and Dr Eliana Lacerda and Caroline Kingdon from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the UK ME/CFS Biobank.

The UK researchers have already used a more robust approach to identify statistically significant differences between the electrical properties in blood from people with ME/CFS compared to healthy and multiple sclerosis (MS) controls (using samples from the UK ME/CFS Biobank).

Their preliminary work suggests that the 2019 results from America are repeatable and can be explored in more detail. Furthermore, that they have the potential to be used as a routine diagnostic test.

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