Doctors José Alegre y Jesús Castro, from the VHIR's http://www.vhir.org/portal1/grup-equip.asp?s=recerca&contentid=187043 systemic diseases research group, will collaborate with Prof Maureen Hanson (CFS/ME Working Group) at Cornell University, NY, USA in the NIH-funded project "The biology of extracellular vesicles or exosomes (EVs/exosomes) and intolerance to exercise in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome" that will be launched in January 2018.In April of this year, the U.S. National Institute of Health launched for the first time a call for 3 collaborative reference centres for biomedical research of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) and a fourth centre for data analysis and system biology. The total budget for these centres is 40 million dollars for five years.The http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/09/94m-nih-grant-funds-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-center Cornell University was one of the selected ones which will carry out 3 projects with a total funding of 9.4 million dollars. One of these projects is led by https://mbg.cornell.edu/people/maureen-hanson Dr Maureen Hanson, lecturer at the Department of Molecular and Genetic Biology of the aforementioned university, and counts with the collaboration of the VHIR through doctors José Alegre and Jesús Castro. The project is focused on the comparison of EV cargo in 35 CFS/ME patients and 32 sedentary heathy controls before and after 24h of a cardiopulmonary test (CPET).The EVs/exosomes are a group of heterogeneous nanoparticles surrounded by a membrane, which, in its interior, contain lipids, proteins, nucleic acids (DNA/RNA), hormones, cytokine, among others, that can influence the functions in other cells (intercellular communication) distant from the body when it merged with them. In addition, "we know that these vesicles are released in greater quantity after a physical exercise so that the project will study the contents within these before and 24 hours after performing an effort test (CPET) to induce post-exertional malaise (pathognomonic symptoms to illness) in CFS/ME subjects and healthy controls individuals in order to explore if the neuroimmune and inflammatory signals of these vesicles can contribute to symptoms exacerbation of the condition", says Dr. Castro.Dr. Castro obtains a MECD GrantDr. Jesús Castro, researcher in the VHIR's systemic diseases research group, has obtained the mobility grant "Salvador de Madariaga" for senior professors and researchers granted by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (MECD) for stays in foreign centres. In particular, Dr. Castro will carry out his work from May and during five months of the next year in the chronic fatigue laboratory led by Dr. Hanson at the Cornell University, USA.Thanks to this grant, "the VHIR CFS/ME Working Group could discover and explore new EV-related pathomechanisms in CFS/ME subjects from two different geographic regions - New York, USA and Barcelona, Spain. In this way, it will be possible to verify if there is a genetic background between the two populations that could explain the difference in the frequency and severity of the symptoms between a patient and another that are suffering from the same disease," says Dr. Castro.At a personal level, Dr. Castro is proud that the first international study of an innovative proposal arising from VHIR in the field of chronic fatigue research can be materialized. "We will be pioneers in the EVs/exosomes analysis in the CFS/ME," concludes Dr. Jesús Castro.