Young EMERG - About Us

Young EMERG

An Early Career Researcher is defined an individual who is within a few years of the award of their PhD or equivalent professional training, or their first academic appointment.

Young EMERG is the Young or Early Career ME Researcher network formed with the European ME Research Group (EMERG) and is set up to support and encourage early career researchers in Europe to enter or pursue a career in research into myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

The network provides a single European early career researcher forum for those involved in, or interested in, developing a career in research into ME. A network where members can come together to discuss life as an early career researcher, where ideas can be generated and shared, and where collaboration can be developed to allow opportunities for those young or early career researchers who are already involved in biomedical research into ME, or involved in another research area which may be of relevance to understanding ME.

By collaborating across Europe we can harness the best talents from the best institutions who are intent on working together.
This will assist in building the capacity of research resources within Europe that is necessary for major discovery about this disease to take place. Importantly, it allows the continuation of research and creates foundations for making progress in the building of a base of European fundamental research into ME.

The Young EMERG Committee

The current Young EMERG executive committee is made up of the following members: -

Dr Katharine Seton, PhD

Chair

Quadram Institute, Norwich Research Park, UK

Katharine is a postdoctoral research scientist working in Professor Simon Carding''s lab group at the Quadram Institute in Norwich, UK.

She is in the first year of her three-year Invest in ME Research fellowship. Her research primarily focuses on the immune response to the intestinal microbiome in ME patients.
She is involved in two clinical trials at the Quadram Institute; Light ME Up and RESTORE-ME.

She is the principal investigator of Light ME Up, which is a feasibility study trialling the use of red light therapy in ME patients. She will also be involved in RESTORE-ME, a phase IIb, placebo-controlled trial investigating microbiota replacement therapy in ME patients.
She has received a grant from Solve ME/CFS Initiative to investigate the premature ageing of the immune system in ME/CFS patients. Katharine also did her PhD in Professor Carding’s lab group, during which she investigated antibody reactivity to the intestinal microbiome in severe (house- or bed-bound) ME patients.

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Karen Giménez Orenga, MSc

Vice Chair of

Universidad Católica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

Karen is a third year PhD candidate in Professor Elisa Oltra's' lab group at the Catholic University of Valencia in Valencia, Spain.
Her research aims at identifying epigenetic profiles of ME/CFS, fibromyalgia (FM) and Post-COVID condition immune systems with a focus on the study of microRNA expression and human endogenous retroviral (HERV) reactivation.

Karen has received a fellowship from Generalitat Valenciana to work in two research projects, one funded by Generalitat Valenciana and Star Exclusivas SL, and the other by meresearch UK. Her research combines wet lab work and bioinformatic -omic analysis to evaluate the impact of microRNAs and HERVs on the metabolic and immune disturbances observed in these diseases to further comprehend their underlying pathomechanisms.

Alongside lab work, she also participates in the establishment of an ME/CFS, FM, and Post-COVID condition biobank collection, in collaboration with the Public Health Biobank of Valencia, and assists in the diffusion of results through local patient organisations.

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Donia Jamal Ramadan, MSc

Engagement Officer

Oslo University Hospital, Norway

Donia is a first year PhD student at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is a member of the project group led by Dr. Marte Viken within the lab group of Professor Benedicte Lie at Oslo University Hospital, where she also carried out her master's in Biomedicine.

Her research group is centered around the genetic components of immune-mediated diseases, with aims to pinpoint molecular patterns and uncover markers for potential treatment response.

In her project, she is particularly focused on ME/CFS, in which she is studying immune profiles in spinal fluid and blood to identify pathogenic cell phenotypes in ME/CFS patients.

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Rik Haagmans, MSc

Secretary

Quadram Institute, Norwich Research Park, UK

Rik is a PhD student at the University of East Anglia, working in the group of Professor Simon Carding at Quadram Institute.
He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Biology and a master’s degree in molecular and cellular life sciences at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He is now in the final year of his PhD project, investigating the role of human viruses in the gut of people with ME/CFS.

Rik is involved in a collaboration with Peter Johnsen, Rasmus Goll and Linn Skjevling at the University Hospital of Northern Norway and the Arctic University of Norway, to study gut viruses of participants of the Comeback Study. This is a clinical trial that investigates the safety and efficacy of faecal microbiota transplantation as a treatment for ME/CFS.

His work includes the metagenomic analysis of the gut virome in Comeback Study participants. He has also collaborated with Dr. Martin Curran at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, to evaluate a test panel for enteropathogens using ME/CFS patient stool samples. His project is jointly funded by Invest in ME Research and the University of East Anglia.

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Johanna Rohrhofer, MSc

Associate

Medical University of Vienna, Austria

Johanna is a PhD student at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. She is in her second year of the Immunology Programme and focuses on gastrointestinal barrier function in the group of Prof. Untersmayr-Elsenhuber. Her working group aims to elucidate the impact of the gut immune barrier in diseases with post-viral fatigue syndromes, such as ME/CFS and Post-acute COVID-19 Sequelae. Next to her laboratory work, she is involved in the projects “Care for ME/CFS” and “CCCFS - Computer-based Clustering of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Patients”, which focus on patient stratification and improving the ME/CFS health care situation in Austria by working together with patients as co-researcher. Currently, Johanna works on the establishment of the first Austrian ME/CFS Biobank, which aims to collect patients samples in accordance with other European ME/CFS biobanks to facilitate international research in the field and ultimately improve the patient health care situation.

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José Andrés Espejo Oltra, MSc

Public Outreach Officer

Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany

José is a first year PhD student at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany. His background consists of a BSc in Biotechnology and a MSc in Cellular and Molecular Neurosciences.

His former work in Professor Elisa Oltra lab group at the Catholic University of Valencia in Valencia, Spain consisted in the measurement of selenium levels and the detection of thyroid autoantibodies in the blood of patients diagnosed with ME/CFS in collaboration with Dr Lutz Schomburg at the Institute for Experimental Endocrinology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin. His findings elucidated a subgroup of ME/CFS patients with a possible misdiagnosis of autoimmune hypothyroidism, opening a potential treatment for this subset of patients. José was also involved in multiple ME/CFS studies and in the establishment of a pre-pandemic ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia biobank collection as well as the molecular analysis of this collection. His research interests involve the molecular basis of neurocognitive, neuroimmune and neuroendocrine dys-/function towards improving patients’ quality of life.

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Regina Torok

Patient Liaison Officer

King’s College London, UK

Regina is a Master’s student at King’s College London studying Neuroscience, and writing her dissertation on the role of joint hypermobility in the brain’s response to inflammation in ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, under the supervision of Dr Jessica Eccles at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She is using functional neuroimaging to investigate whether hypermobility influences the changes in the brain’s functional connectivity in response to an inflammatory challenge (typhoid vaccination) and whether these brain connectivity changes could be related to symptoms of ME/CFS and fibromyalgia. She is also a Long COVID patient, who developed dysautonomia, POTS and MCAS following a mild infection in March 2020, which led to a passion for patient advocacy and commitment to fostering an inclusive research environment for patients with ME/CFS and Long COVID.

Regina has also been involved in launching a study in collaboration with Dr Jessica Eccles, her colleagues, and independent researchers in the US to investigate whether hypermobility may play a role in the development of Long COVID. Regina is convinced that patient involvement in research will be crucial to swiftly discovering treatments for ME/CFS and associated conditions.

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