Lacerda, Eliana M, Mudie, Kathleen, Kingdon, Caroline C et al. · Frontiers in neurology · 2018 · DOI
Researchers in the UK created a special collection of biological samples (like blood) and health information from 600 people—including those with ME/CFS, people with multiple sclerosis, and healthy volunteers. This resource, called the UK ME/CFS Biobank, was designed to help scientists study ME/CFS more effectively and find reliable ways to diagnose the disease. The biobank is being shared with researchers around the world to speed up discovery.
ME/CFS lacks validated diagnostic biomarkers and requires coordinated research infrastructure to advance understanding of disease mechanisms. This biobank provides a critical shared resource that accelerates biomedical research and enables collaborative investigations that individual labs cannot conduct alone. By making samples and data accessible to the global research community, the UKMEB democratizes ME/CFS research and increases the likelihood of breakthrough discoveries.
This paper describes a biobank infrastructure rather than reporting research findings, so it does not establish what causes ME/CFS, identify specific disease biomarkers, or prove efficacy of any diagnostic test or treatment. The presence of a resource does not in itself prove the validity of any subsequent findings from studies using the biobank. This is an infrastructure paper and should not be interpreted as presenting clinical trial data or mechanistic conclusions about disease pathophysiology.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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Primary citation
Lacerda, Eliana M, Mudie, Kathleen, Kingdon, Caroline C, Butterworth, Jack D, O'Boyle, Shennae, & Nacul, Luis (2018). The UK ME/CFS Biobank: A Disease-Specific Biobank for Advancing Clinical Research Into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. Frontiers in neurology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2018.01026
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-lacerda-2018-cfs-biobank,
author = {Lacerda, Eliana M and Mudie, Kathleen and Kingdon, Caroline C and Butterworth, Jack D and O'Boyle, Shennae and Nacul, Luis},
title = {The UK ME/CFS Biobank: A Disease-Specific Biobank for Advancing Clinical Research Into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.},
journal = {Frontiers in neurology},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.3389/fneur.2018.01026},
note = {PubMed: 30564186},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lacerda-2018-cfs-biobank},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/lacerda-2018-cfs-biobank
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