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Suzanne D. Vernon, PhD
Suzanne D. Vernon , PhD, is the Research Liaison at Bateman Horne Center of Excellence which specializes in treatment and research for ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia and the Chief Scientific Revolutionary of The BioCollective, a collaborative that provides storage and sales of microbiome samples for research and development.
From November 2007 to May 2015, Dr. Vernon was the Scientific Director of Solve ME/CFS Initiative, formerly known as CFIDS Association of America. While there she recognized that access to well-characterized clinical populations was a barrier to engaging more scientists in ME/ CFS research. Thus, she started the Research Institute Without Walls (RIWW), "the first nonprofit patient-centered research initiative focused on identifying diagnostic biomarkers and disease-modifying treatment for ME/ CFS. The core of RIWW is the SolveCFS BioBank & Patient Registry.
From May 1990 to October 2007, Dr. Vernon worked for the US Centers for Disease Control , first on the team investigating the human papillomavirus as an opportunistic infection in HIV-infected woman, and then in 1997, she became the CFS research group team leader, under William Reeves , MD, the Director of the CDC Chronic Fatigue Research Program.
In 2005, Dr Vernon was one of the authors of the CDC case definition of CFS , commonly called the Reeves criteria .
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What is chronic fatigue syndrome?
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an illness characterized by prolonged, debilitating fatigue that does not improve with rest and worsens with physical or mental activity. It is also characterized by multiple nonspecific symptoms such as headaches, recurrent sore throats, muscle and joint pains, and memory and concentration difficulties.
Profound fatigue can come on suddenly or gradually and persists or recurs throughout the illness. Unlike the short-term disability of an illness such as the flu, by definition CFS symptoms must have lasted for at least six months. They often linger for years. The cause of CFS is unknown.
CFS also may be called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME or ME/CFS or CFS/ME) or chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS).
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