Brigitte Huber

Brigitte Huber, PhD, is a Professor of Integrative Physiology & Pathobiology, at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts. She has studied the presence of retrovirus HERV K-18 as a potential biomarker for those who develop myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) after a case of infectious mononucleosis. HERV-K18 is one of many endogenous human retroviruses in the normal human genome. It can be activated in a variety of ways and affect the outcome of Epstein-Barr virus infection and influence autoimmune disease. Dr. Huber's research has shown that there are more HERV K-18 alleles in post-mononucleosis ME/CFS patients than in controls.

In 2011, Dr. Huber and her lab associates were one of the groups who were unable to duplicate Dr. Judy Mikovits's finding of the presence of XMRV in ME/CFS patients. In 2013, she and her lab associates were unable to show reactivation of human herpesvirus 6 (Human herpesvirus 6) or human herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7) in chronic fatigue syndrome.

Education

 * BA, Biology, University of Zurich
 * MSc, Pharmacology, University of Basel
 * PhD, Immunogenetics, University of London
 * Postdoctoral Training, Harvard Medical School

Talks and interviews

 * 2010, Speaker at the 5th [[Invest in ME International ME Conference] on Presence of Retrovirus as a Biomarker for ME/CFS] DVD available

Studies

 * 2001, Epstein-Barr virus transactivates the human endogenous retrovirus HERV-K18 that encodes a superantigen. (Full Text)
 * 2011, Failure to Detect XMRV-Specific Antibodies in the Plasma of CFS Patients Using Highly Sensitive Chemiluminescence Immunoassays. (Full text)
 * 2013, Human endogenous retrovirus-K18 superantigen expression and human herpesvirus-6 and human herpesvirus-7 viral loads in chronic fatigue patients (Full Text)

Learn more

 * [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-retrovirus/