Ronald Davis

Ronald W. Davis, PhD., is a Professor of Biochemistry & Genetics and the Director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center at Stanford University. His son, Whitney Dafoe, is severely ill with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Professor Davis leads the End ME/CFS Project with the Open Medicine Foundation whose first project was the ME/CFS Severely Ill, Big Data Study.

Institute of Medicine report
Dr. Davis was one of the experts on the "Committee on the Diagnostic Criteria for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" that was convened as per US government request for the 2015 Institute of Medicine report. The Institute of Medicine has since changed its name to the National Academy of Medicine.

Open Letter to The Lancet
Two open letters to the editor of The Lancet urged the editor to commission a fully independent review of the PACE trial, which the journal had published in 2011. The first, written in 2015, was sign by Dr. Davis and 5 of his colleagues. In 2016, thirty-six additional colleagues in the ME/CFS field, signed the second letter.
 * 13 November 2015, An open letter to Dr. Richard Horton and The Lancet
 * 10 February 2016, An open letter to The Lancet, again - Virology blog

ME/CFS Research
In March 2016, it was announced that the ME/CFS Severely Ill, Big Data Study had a significant result in the area of mitochondria. This lead to the addition of Dr. Robert Naviaux (a mitochondrial expert) to the research team.

In February 2017, Dr. Davis explained in a video that the development of new nanofabricated technology allows rapid drug screening via measurement of electrical impedance. This technology may be able to determine which medications could be most effective in treating myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Experimentation is also being carried out to test if this same nanofabricated technology could be used in developing a simple diagnostic test for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.

Talks and Interviews
2017 2016
 * The Last Major Disease To Be Studied? Ron Davis of Stanford Thinks So (Mendelspod podcast) (June 15)
 * Q&A on ME/CFS Research with Dr. Ron Davis (Mar 7)
 * An Update on ME/CFS Research with Dr. Ronald W. Davis VIDEO TRANSCRIPT (Feb 21)
 * Chronic Fatigue: Missing Millions (Carte Blanche DSTV) (Feb 20)
 * Scientist Ron Davis Tells How We Are "Fast-Tracking" ME/CFS Research (Feb 3)
 * Getting Answers to ME/CFS Faster through Collaboration and Openness (Dec 13)
 * Speaker at the 11th Invest in ME International ME Conference - Big Data Approach: Severely Ill ME Patient Cohort DVD available (Jun 3)
 * Short Story of a Family's Struggle with ME/CFS (May 21)

Online presence

 * PubMed

Advocacy efforts
Dr. Ron Davis and his wife, Dr. Janet Dafoe, protested with #MillionsMissing at the San Francisco satellite protest on May 25, 2016. Dr. Davis gave a speech about the challenges ME patients face, and his hopes for the future of ME research. To see video of Dr. Davis's interview at the San Francisco #MillionsMissing click HERE.

Learn more

 * Wikipedia - Ronald Davis
 * 2016, Happy 75th Birthday to Scientist Ronald W. Davis, PhD
 * 2016, Tackling chronic fatigue syndrome (January 5)
 * 2016, "The puzzle solver: A researcher changes course to help his son" by Tracie White, Stanford Medicine