GEM Consortium

Contact

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Contact

Please reach out to admin@mecfsgenetics.org if you are interested in joining our efforts.

Initial DecodeME GWAS

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a common, poorly understood disease that has no effective treatments, and has long been underserved by scientific research and national health systems. It is a sex-biased disease towards females that is often triggered by an infection, and its hallmark symptom is post-exertional malaise. People with ME/CFS often report their symptoms being disbelieved. The biological mechanisms causing ME/CFS remain unclear.

What we’re doing

We recruited 21,620 ME/CFS cases and performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for up to 15,579 cases and 259,909 population controls with European genetic ancestry. In these GWAS, we discovered eight loci that are significantly associated with ME/CFS, including three near BTN2A2, OLFM4, and RABGAP1L genes that act in the response to viral or bacterial infection. Four of the eight loci (RABGAP1L, FBXL4, OLFM4, CA10) were associated at p < 0.05 with cases ascertained using post-exertional malaise and fatigue in the UK Biobank and the Netherlands biobank Lifelines. We found no evidence of sex-bias among discovered associations, and replicated in males two genetic signals (ARFGEF2, CA10) discovered in females. The ME/CFS association near CA10 colocalises with a known association to multisite chronic pain. We found no evidence that the eight ME/CFS genetic signals share common causal genetic variants with depression or anxiety. Our findings suggest that both immunological and neurological processes are involved in the genetic risk of ME/CFS.

Join the consortium

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The GEM Consortium is looking for new members at all career stages interested in running large-scale analyses, contributing data, and writing manuscripts that focus on the genetics, omics, and epidemiology of ME/CFS and comorbid conditions.

Preprint available for first GWAS of ME/CFS

Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to Chris Ponting and other consortium members for a new publication on the genetics of ME/CFS!

Initial findings from the DecodeME GWAS of ME/CFS

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000