Anthony Komaroff

Anthony L. Komaroff, MD, is an Internal Medicine physician and a foremost expert in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) since the late 1980s. Since 1993, he has been a professor at Harvard Medical School in the United States, holding the title of the Steven P. Simcox, Patrick A. Clifford and James H. Higby Distinguished Professor of Medicine.

Dr. Komaroff serves on the team for the Center for Solutions for ME/CFS at Columbia University, a Collaborative Research Center (CRC) partially funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

He was quoted in a Rolling Stone article in 1987, written by Hillary Johnson, stating that he did not agree the illness was a "yuppie disease", which became the derogatory label commonly used later, "Yuppie Flu". He is featured in Ryan Prior's documentary, Forgotten Plague.

Committees and Boards

 * 1991-1992, served as past President of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis


 * Sep 2003-Sep 2006, member of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services


 * 2017-2018, serves as co-chair with Dr. Jose Montoya for the Baseline/Covariate Working Group of the Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Common Data Elements (CDE) Project sponsored by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. This working group reviewed data collection instruments widely used by investigators in the ME/CFS field, and either recommended their use unchanged or (more often) proposed some modifications. 

Education

 * 1959 – 1963, A.B., History, Pre-Med, Stanford University
 * 1963 – 1967, M.D., University of Washington

Awards and Honors

 * 2001, Rudy Perpich Senior Lectureship Award, presented to a distinguished CFS/FM scientist, physician or healthcare worker awarded by IACFS/ME
 * Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American College of Physicians, and the Association for Health Services Research.
 * Served on advisory committees for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (HHS) the Surgeon General of the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences.
 * Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the HHV-6 Foundation.

Medscape Continuing Medicine Education

 * 2013, A Case-Based Approach to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Articles

 * 2015, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Biology, Diagnosis, and Management
 * 2015, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Real Illness

Notable studies

 * 1992, A chronic illness characterized by fatigue, neurologic and immunologic disorders, and active human herpesvirus type 6 infection (Abstract)
 * 1994, Ampligen inhibits human herpesvirus-6 in vitro (Abstract)
 * 1994, The chronic fatigue syndrome: a comprehensive approach to its definition and study. International Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study Group (Abstract)
 * 1999, Chronic fatigue syndrome: new insights and old ignorance (Abstract)
 * 2001, Increased Eosinophil Protein X Levels in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Abstract)
 * 2007, Changes in Functional Status in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Over a Decade: Do Age and Gender Matter? (Abstract)
 * 2011, Failure to Confirm XMRV/MLVs in the Blood of Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Multi-Laboratory Study (Full Text)
 * 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)
 * 2015, Findings from a clinical and laboratory database developed for discovery of pathogenic mechanisms in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (Abstract)
 * 2015, Distinct plasma immune signatures in ME/CFS are present early in the course of illness (Full Text)
 * 2016, CDC Grand Rounds: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome — Advancing Research and Clinical Education. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Full Text)
 * 2017, Fecal metagenomic profiles in subgroups of patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (Full Text)
 * 2017, Inflammation correlates with symptoms in chronic fatigue syndrome (Full Text)
 * 2018, Neurologic Abnormalities in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Review (Abstract)
 * 2018, Insights into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome phenotypes through comprehensive metabolomics (Full Text)

Talks & interviews

 * 2014, ME/CFS Alert Interviews:
 * Episode 60: Interview with Dr. Anthony Komaroff, Harvard Medical School Part 1 Part2 Part3
 * Episode 63: Dr. Anthony Komaroff Offers Advice for the Department of Health
 * 2016, Beyond the Data – Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Advancing Research and Clinical Education (NIH Post-Infectious ME/CFS Study)
 * Feb 16, 2016, CDC Grand Rounds - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Advancing Research and Clinical Education
 * Grand Rounds Video
 * Grand Rounds Presentation Slide Deck


 * Nov 5, 2016, ME/CFS: A Surge of Interest and Knowledge (Lecture) | Anthony L. Komaroff, MD
 * Nov 10, 2016, Solve ME/CFS Initiative Webinar with Dr. Anthony Komaroff - "Hot Areas in ME/CFS Research"
 * Nov 18, 2016, Dr Anthony Komaroff on ME/CFS Treatment and Research
 * May 24, 2017 - Speaker at the Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC) 2017 at Duke
 * Topic: "ME/CFS: The Mysterious Illness Science Has Yet to Unravel"


 * May 24, 2018, Solve ME/CFS Initiative Webinar - Updates: Hot Areas in ME/CFS Research: 2018
 * Jul 19, 2018, ME/CFS Advocacy Call - Recorded call and transcript
 * Jan 7, 2019, ME/CFS: A Surge of Interest and Knowledge (Lecture) | Anthony L. Komaroff, MD

Online presence

 * PubMed - Anthony Komaroff
 * Ask Doctor K - an online medical information column for patients
 * LinkedIn

Learn more

 * Wikipedia