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Open Medicine Foundation Australia

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Open Medicine Foundation Australia, Nonprofit Organization, 50 Camberwell Road, Hawthorn East.

OMF Australia is part of the OMF global collaboration that drives and funds world-class research into ME/CFS, Long COVID, and related conditions, to illuminate their mechanisms, accelerate effective treatments, and empower personalised care.

20/08/2026

You asked OMF to prioritise post-exertional symptom worsening and crashes in CTN Lite treatment trials. We heard you, and we've been working to understand what that actually requires.

Now we need your input. The survey Understanding Post-Exertional Symptom Worsening in ME/CFS presents two frameworks developed through patient and researcher engagement and asks how well they reflect your experience. Your responses will go directly into CTN Lite trial design. This is not background research.

Open to people with ME/CFS and caregivers completing on a patient's behalf. Anonymous. Takes approximately 20-30 minutes. Closes 18 September.

🔗 Take the survey: https://ow.ly/oBBy50ZBXPM

19/08/2026

A case-control study works backward—researchers start with people who already have a disease and compare them to people who don't, looking for clues about what might have caused it. A cohort study works forward—researchers follow a group of people over time, watching to see who develops a disease and what factors seem to play a role.

Since the underlying mechanisms of ME/CFS remain unclear, both approaches have value in ME/CFS research. Cohort studies are especially useful for tracking how ME/CFS develops after triggers like viral infections (e.g., EBV, COVID-19). Case-control studies help researchers identify specific biological differences, such as immune or metabolic markers, between patients and controls.

OMF’s Collaborative Centre at Uppsala is conducting a cohort study in the Long COVID Clinic Studies project, following people after a COVID infection as they develop ME/CFS. Read more about the study: https://ow.ly/EyEh50ZB2rw.

18/08/2026

From Nothingness by Whitney Dafoe
➡️ Swipe for text ➡️
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13/08/2026

🔬Help advance and research by joining OMF’s StudyME, a free global participant registry that connects you with researchers conducting studies in these areas.

Healthy volunteers are needed too!

The registration process is simple and takes less than 5 minutes! All you need to do is provide your contact information and indicate your areas of interest.

👉 Sign up today: https://ow.ly/P2UV50YciI3

Already part of StudyME? Please share this post so we can reach more people. 💙

12/08/2026

Science Wednesdays: Validation vs Verification

A biomarker is a measurable signal in the body (e.g., a protein in the blood) that tells us something meaningful about a disease. Finding reliable biomarkers for ME/CFS is a critical need in the field, but before any biomarker can be used to diagnose patients or guide treatment, it has to pass two critical tests: verification and validation.

Verification: "Can we reliably detect it?"
Verification confirms that a biomarker can be measured consistently and accurately. It answers the question: if this signal is present, can our tools detect it reliably—every time, across different labs, different equipment, and different operators? A biomarker that shows up clearly in one lab but disappears in another hasn't been verified.

Validation: "Does it actually mean what we think it means?"
Validation takes a step beyond verification, trying to confirm that a biomarker genuinely reflects the biology of the disease—it’s not a coincidence, not a side effect of medication, not a pattern that appears in healthy people, too. Validation asks: does this signal hold up across different patient groups, different disease stages, and different research settings? A validated biomarker is critical for eventual use in a clinical setting.

Why does verification and validation matter for ME/CFS?
ME/CFS research has historically suffered from findings that generated excitement but couldn't be reproduced—results that appeared in one study but failed to hold up elsewhere. This is not unique to ME/CFS, but unverified or unvalidated findings stall progress, erode trust, and delay the development of real diagnostic tools that are desperately needed by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Rigorous verification and validation are how researchers ensure that a promising signal becomes a proven one and that patients ultimately benefit from discoveries.

Putting this into practice, the plans for OMF’s large-scale biomarker project, BioQuest, account for verification and validation of any signal identified in the discovery phase. BioQuest’s phase 2 will verify the biomarker signature in an independent cohort, determining if the results are reproducible on new data. Then, a prospective study will be conducted to validate that reproducible signature and address clinical utility. Read more about the first phase of the BioQuest study on our website: https://www.omf.ngo/bioquest-large-scale-biomarker-project/

08/08/2026

“I must lie silent, isolated in time.”

Those words are from Ffion, a poet living with M.E. and fibromyalgia, writing about post-exertional malaise at 2 a.m. — the crash that follows even minor exertion, arriving hours later and lasting days or weeks.

On 8 August, Severe ME/CFS Day, we hold space for the people this disease has pushed furthest from view. An estimated 1 in 4 people with ME/CFS is housebound or bedbound. For the most severely ill, a conversation, a light, or a single sound can cost weeks of recovery. They are often too sick to advocate for themselves — and too sick to be included in the research meant to help them.

OMF-funded research at our Collaborative Research Centers is built to include the most severely ill patients. We won't stop until there are answers.

To everyone in a darkened room today: we see you, and we are working for you. 💙

“P.E.M. at 2 a.m.” by Ffion, shared with her kind permission. Read more of her work at ffionoriginalpoems.blogspot.com

05/08/2026

🧬 Science Wednesdays: Principal component analysis

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a mathematical tool that helps researchers make sense of large, complex datasets by finding patterns and grouping similar information together. It reduces hundreds or thousands of variables into a smaller set of key "components" that can explain the majority of the bigger picture.

In ME/CFS research, where patients show a wide range of symptoms and biological markers, PCA helps scientists identify the most important information. This makes it a powerful tool for untangling complex datasets like those produced by proteomics, metabolomics, and others commonly used in ME/CFS studies.

OMF’s Computational Research Centre for Complex Diseases brings expertise in using mathematical tools like PCA to collaborative projects. Read more about the Centre on our website: https://www.omf.ngo/computational-research-center/.

30/07/2026

Has OMF-funded research given you hope? Tell the world. 💙 https://ow.ly/34p650ZuPL2

Behind every study we fund are real people — patients, families, and caregivers living with ME/CFS, Long COVID, and the related complex chronic diseases medicine has overlooked for far too long.

If our work has meant something to you, would you take two minutes to share your story on GreatNonprofits? Your review helps new families find us, shows donors the impact of their generosity, and reaffirms the importance of this work to our research community.

👉 Leave a review: https://ow.ly/34p650ZuPL2 (click "Write a Review")

Thank you for being part of the movement to make the unknown known.

29/07/2026

Clinically meaningful is a term for the real-world impact of a treatment or intervention on a person’s health. It differs from statistical significance because it focuses on whether a change is actually important to the patient rather than just mathematically important.

In ME/CFS research, it can be challenging identifying what changes in survey results or other outcome measures correlate to clinically meaningful differences in function. That can make it difficult to design clinical trials with target changes in outcome measures that would be clinically meaningful for participants.

OMF has over 35 active research projects—including those investigating treatments—which yield a lot of data that can be used to help identify how survey answers might correlate with clinically meaningful results. Read more about OMF’s research portfolio on our website: https://www.omf.ngo/the-end-mecfs-project/ .

28/07/2026

Save the date! OMF's Vice President of Research Programs and Operations, Danielle Meadows, PhD, will join Bateman Horne Center, Solve M.E. and for a special edition of Coffee with a Clinician honoring Severe ME/CFS Awareness Month. Representatives from each organization, and the authors of "What is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Like?", will share insights and updates related to Severe ME research and advocacy.

Don't miss this opportunity to hear from leaders across the ME/CFS community and learn how we can continue advancing Severe M.E. awareness, research, and hope.

Wednesday, August 12 | 10:00 AM MDT (9:00 AM PT | 11:00 AM CT | 12:00 PM ET)

Register for this free event here https://batemanhornecenter.zoom.us/meeting/register/kAHxnxYnSjS_emvZ0M-Whw #/registration

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50 Camberwell Road
Hawthorn East, VIC
3123

Website

http://www.omfaustralia.ngo/

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