Beyond Infection: Uncovering Chronic Illness Triggers
A WRH Research Group operates within our department's Global Health theme and is run by Prof. Karl Morten.
Research project: Post infection associated chronic conditions
Why this project is important?
Covid and the associated condition known as Long Covid have highlighted the importance of long-term illnesses linked to infections. Long Covid is just the tip of the iceberg, with conditions such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), long-term complications following treatment for Lyme disease, and Multiple Sclerosis all commonly associated with infectious triggers. These conditions, which predominantly affect women, are often difficult to diagnose and currently lack effective treatments.
Our research explores the development of new diagnostic tests, understanding the biology of the conditions and working with other research groups around the world to move research forwards in these complex and miss-understood illnesses.
How the results of our study will help
We are currently undertaking a number of studies in our laboratory and are looking to link with other researchers in Oxford who carry out more clinical research. By bringing everyone together we hope in the next year to start recruiting patients to large clinical studies. This will not only allow us to look for new treatment targets but also test currently available treatments which could reduce the symptom burden.
Video: ME Support's Guest Speaker Dr Karl Morten PhD (from AGM 2023)
This is a video of Dr Karl Morten's talk on ‘Understanding the Underlying Biology Behind ME/CFS’ at our 10th AGM, 2023, on the 11th of November 2023.
In this video he also talks about: his research into identifying fatigue associated blood factors in ME/CFS, developing a blood cell-based diagnostic test for this illness, the importance of chronic Infections in chronic disease, the potential role of mitochondria and our microbiome.
The four areas of our research
- Exploring the utility of Raman microspectroscopy as a diagnostic test. Our first study could accurately classify an unknown white cell sample 90% of the time. Our second validation project supported by the ME Association is currently at the analysis stage.
- Is there evidence of a currently undiagnosed chronic infection in hard to access areas? This is major challenge, as we cannot easy access the areas such as the brain which are likely key sites of the problem.
Our current work is exploring changes in blood which may give us clues related to an infection. In the future we look at the use of 7T MRI and explore more accessible areas such as the joints where opportunist pathogens may also be located. - The immune system appears compromised in these conditions and our future research using our new Raman Microspectroscopy system will to look much more deeply at immune cell function in patient blood samples.
- A new collaboration with the Rosalind Franklin Institute will develop new tools to help Identify causal molecules in patient tissue. Metabolomics the study of small molecules generated by our cells is currently limited by the Inability to identify some of the key molecules which are different between patients and controls.
This project will great accelerate our discovery work which looks to identify new treatment targets
Long Covid afflicts more than 65 million individuals globally with a wide spectrum of symptoms involving multiple organ systems meaning it does not fit in one medical specialty. ME/CFS which has been around for longer is similar and effects over 250,000 people in the UK. As ME/CFS is not recognised as a real illness in many countries it's global impact is difficult to assess. With these conditions predominately affecting women they have a huge impact on women’s global health - Prof. Karl Morten
Our long term goals
In the long term our research is looking to identify causal elements which are currently driving these post infection illnesses. There are many biological changes associated with the conditions. Some of our research suggests over 1000 molecules in blood are very different from a healthy person. Our research plans to identify causal elements by linking improvement or worsening of symptoms with changes in biology. Our hope is this will identify disease causing pathways we can look to correct and ultimately cure the illness.
UPDATE: How our research is going?
Our Raman diagnostics validation project on a further 30 Healthy control, 30 ME/CFS and 30 MS patients is at the data analysis stage with Miss Edie Guo taking this work forwards as part of her D Phil studies . If successful the next stage will be to roll this out working with global collaborators in the UK and Canada to expand the method to other conditions including fibromylagia and Long Covid. For any test it important to be able to distinguish very similar illnesses.
The ME Association have recently funded a collaboration with Professor Ladislav Valkovic (Radcliffe Department of Medicine) and Dr Patrick Esser / Dr Richard Baskerville (Oxford Brookes) to study the impact of Post Exertional Malaise (PEM) on muscle on ME/CFS patient muscle function using magnetic resonance spectroscopy and near infra-red spectroscopy. The study is at the ethics application stage and we hope to start recruiting patients in summer 2025. Although the grant only supports the clinical work we will also be taking blood samples for later analysis although further funding will be needed to move the laboratory work forwards.
Dr Inga Williams is studying a variety of ME/CFS treatment cohorts for her D Phil exploring potential abnormalities associated with gut leak and blood brain barrier function. An exciting new study with Dr Bela Paizs and our new D Phil student Miss Aleyna Lumsden at the Rossalind Franklin Institute will start in October 2025 and explore new approaches to identify currently unknown potentially causal blood metabolites.
Useful links
Understanding the causes of ME/CFS
Your donation will contribute to important research on the causes of ME/CFS, helping us work towards better diagnosis and management.
Global Health theme
Our research under the Global Health theme spans a diverse range of groups, including: Cardiovascular Disease, INTERGROWTH-21st, ME/CFS, Multimorbidity, Neurodevelopment, the Oxford University Global Surgery Group and SMARThealth.
New Research Platform Proposal for ME/CFS & Long Covid
Leading UK charities and experts launched a proposal for a groundbreaking research platform focused on ME/CFS, Long Covid, and post-infectious diseases—shaped by lived experience and cross-sector collaboration.
Latest publications
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An approach to finding specific forms of dysbiosis that associate with different disorders
Preprint
Williams J. et al, (2024)
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Raman micro-spectroscopy as a tool to study immunometabolism.
Journal article
Xu J. and Morten KJ., (2024), Biochem Soc Trans, 52, 733 - 745
The research team
How can you help?
National funding available for research in these diseases is limited and we are still not at the point where we can put together proposals competitive with proposals associated with better understood conditions. Donations have had a great impact on our research capabilities allowing us to fund the laboratory costs of visiting researchers and supporting the day to day costs of our PhD students.
If you are able to donate a small amount please visit the link below.