Mady Hornig

Professor Mady Hornig is a physician-scientist and Director of Translational Research at the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health where she is also Associate Professor of Epidemiology.

Notable studies

 * 2017, Fecal metagenomic profiles in subgroups of patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (FULL TEXT)"Abstract - Background: Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is characterized by unexplained persistent fatigue, commonly accompanied by cognitive dysfunction, sleeping disturbances, orthostatic intolerance, fever, lymphadenopathy, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The extent to which the gastrointestinal microbiome and peripheral inflammation are associated with ME/CFS remains unclear. We pursued rigorous clinical characterization, fecal bacterial metagenomics, and plasma immune molecule analyses in 50 ME/CFS patients and 50 healthy controls frequency-matched for age, sex, race/ethnicity, geographic site, and season of sampling. Results: Topological analysis revealed associations between IBS co-morbidity, body mass index, fecal bacterial composition, and bacterial metabolic pathways but not plasma immune molecules. IBS co-morbidity was the strongest driving factor in the separation of topological networks based on bacterial profiles and metabolic pathways. Predictive selection models based on bacterial profiles supported findings from topological analyses indicating that ME/CFS subgroups, defined by IBS status, could be distinguished from control subjects with high predictive accuracy. Bacterial taxa predictive of ME/CFS patients with IBS were distinct from taxa associated with ME/CFS patients without IBS. Increased abundance of unclassified Alistipes and decreased Faecalibacterium emerged as the top biomarkers of ME/CFS with IBS; while increased unclassified Bacteroides abundance and decreased Bacteroides vulgatus were the top biomarkers of ME/CFS without IBS. Despite findings of differences in bacterial taxa and metabolic pathways defining ME/CFS subgroups, decreased metabolic pathways associated with unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis and increased atrazine degradation pathways were independent of IBS co-morbidity. Increased vitamin B6 biosynthesis/salvage and pyrimidine ribonucleoside degradation were the top metabolic pathways in ME/CFS without IBS as well as in the total ME/CFS cohort. In ME/CFS subgroups, symptom severity measures including pain, fatigue, and reduced motivation were correlated with the abundance of distinct bacterial taxa and metabolic pathways. Conclusions: Independent of IBS, ME/CFS is associated with dysbiosis and distinct bacterial metabolic disturbances that may influence disease severity. However, our findings indicate that dysbiotic features that are uniquely ME/CFS-associated may be masked by disturbances arising from the high prevalence of IBS co-morbidity in ME/CFS. These insights may enable more accurate diagnosis and lead to insights that inform the development of specific therapeutic strategies in ME/CFS subgroups."
 * 2016, Cytokine network analysis of cerebrospinal fluid in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome."Abstract: 'Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome is an unexplained debilitating disorder that is frequently associated with cognitive and motor dysfunction. We analyzed cerebrospinal fluid from 32 cases, 40 subjects with multiple sclerosis and 19 normal subjects frequency-matched for age and sex using a 51-plex cytokine assay. Group-specific differences were found for the majority of analytes with an increase in cases of CCL11 (eotaxin), a chemokine involved in eosinophil recruitment. Network analysis revealed an inverse relationship between interleukin 1 receptor antagonist and colony-stimulating factor 1, colony-stimulating factor 2 and interleukin 17F, without effects on interleukin 1α or interleukin 1β, suggesting a disturbance in interleukin 1 signaling. Our results indicate a markedly disturbed immune signature in the cerebrospinal fluid of cases that is consistent with immune activation in the central nervous system, and a shift toward an allergic or T helper type-2 pattern associated with autoimmunity.'"
 * 2015, Distinct plasma immune signatures in ME/CFS are present early in the course of illness FULL TEXT"'Abstract: Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is an unexplained incapacitating illness that may affect up to 4 million people in the United States alone. There are no validated laboratory tests for diagnosis or management despite global efforts to find biomarkers of disease. We considered the possibility that inability to identify such biomarkers reflected variations in diagnostic criteria and laboratory methods as well as the timing of sample collection during the course of the illness. Accordingly, we leveraged two large, multicenter cohort studies of ME/CFS to assess the relationship of immune signatures with diagnosis, illness duration, and other clinical variables. Controls were frequency-matched on key variables known to affect immune status, including season of sampling and geographic site, in addition to age and sex. We report here distinct alterations in plasma immune signatures early in the course of ME/CFS (n = 52) relative to healthy controls (n = 348) that are not present in subjects with longer duration of illness (n = 246). Analyses based on disease duration revealed that early ME/CFS cases had a prominent activation of both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines as well as dissociation of intercytokine regulatory networks. We found a stronger correlation of cytokine alterations with illness duration than with measures of illness severity, suggesting that the immunopathology of ME/CFS is not static. These findings have critical implications for discovery of interventional strategies and early diagnosis of ME/CFS.'"
 * 2015, Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is associated with pandemic influenza infection, but not with an adjuvanted pandemic influenza vaccine
 * 2015, Findings from a clinical and laboratory database developed for discovery of pathogenic mechanisms in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Abstract
 * 2012, A Multicenter Blinded Analysis Indicates No Association between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and either Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus-Related Virus or Polytropic Murine Leukemia Virus (FULL TEXT) (see XMRV)

Talks & interviews

 * 2 Jun 2017, Speaker at the 12th Invest in ME International ME Conference on "Gut-metabolome-immune disturbances in ME/CFS subsets" DVD available
 * 2016, 12th International [[IACFSME] Biennial Clinical and Research Conference, Emerging Science and Clinical Care, Session Chair for Session 1: The Latest Research in Immunology and the Microbiome]
 * 2016, Speaker at the 11th Invest in ME International ME Conference - DVD available
 * 2015, Speaker at the 10th Invest in ME International ME Conference - DVD available
 * 2015, [[ME/CFS Alert] Episode 73: Dr. Mady Hornig (Part 1)]
 * 2015, [[ME/CFS Alert] Episode 74: Dr. Mady Hornig (Part 2)]
 * 2015, The Invisible Ones - A Conference on Severe ME/CFS and the Way Forward - Mady Hornig, Sweden, 19 October 2015.
 * Transcript of the above talk
 * 2015, Scientists Discover Robust Evidence That Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Is a Biological Illness, 27 February 2015.
 * 2014, Speaker at the 9th Invest in ME International ME Conference - DVD available

Lawsuit
On May 18th, 2017, Mady Hornig brought a lawsuit against the Trustees of Columbia University and Walter Ian Lipkin in NY City court. A jury trial was demanded under Complaint 17 CV 3602. Discriminatory and retaliatory acts (Item 22), blocking of ME/CFS research (Item 157), misappropriation of funds (Item 225), and many other complaints impacting ME/CFS research.

Media & Science journal coverage

 * May 23, 2017: Lawsuit at Columbia University roils prominent chronic fatigue syndrome research lab Science Magazine


 * May 20, 2017: Columbia professor says boss made her inspect his butt New York Post

Online presence

 * Columbia University - Mady Hornig, MD
 * PubMed - Mady Hornig

Learn more

 * Wikipedia - Mady Hornig
 * 2016, The Other MEGA Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) Project: Dr. Hornig Talks
 * 2016, Is chronic fatigue syndrome finally being taken seriously?
 * 2015, Distinct stages to chronic fatigue syndrome identified
 * 2015, Ian Lipkin and Mady Hornig take the #ChiliMEChallenge (see Chilli ME Challenge)