Our goal is to identify causes of ME/CFS. For this we will first isolate and analyse patients’ DNA from their saliva samples. We will then look at around a million common variants in DNA and see if any of the variants are more or less common in patients than seen in control individuals. Questionnaire data such as age, type of onset and symptoms will be used to gain a better understanding of patients’ background and illness and we will link this survey data to their genetic data.

We also ask patients if they are willing to provide us access to their electronic health record. This would help us to get a more detailed understanding of patients’ illness, progression, and symptoms, but would be entirely optional and will not affect eligibility for the study.