A Year in Review: PatientsLikeMe in 2009

As 2009 comes to an end, we want to take this opportunity to thank all of our members, partners and general fans for another great year.   Here’s a recap of some of the exciting happenings at PatientsLikeMe these past 12 months.  Wishing you all a Happy New Year! Community Milestones This year, the 15+ disease… Continue reading A Year in Review: PatientsLikeMe in 2009

PatientsLikeMe @ The 20th International ALS/MND Symposium in Berlin

The 20th International Symposium on ALS/MND took place (December 8th-10th) in Berlin, Germany. This is the 4th ALS Symposium attended by PatientsLikeMe, and certainly the most exciting in terms of new findings. The annual symposium is a tremendous opportunity for researchers from around the world to meet and share new developments – it’s the big… Continue reading PatientsLikeMe @ The 20th International ALS/MND Symposium in Berlin

Research Award: Patients Informing Practice

Earlier this Fall at Medicine 2.0, PatientsLikeMe was honored to receive the inaugural Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) Award for our paper on what we can learn about drugs post market from patients reporting treatment experiences on PatientsLikeMe. Once a drug is on the market, it can be difficult to evaluate how it’s working… Continue reading Research Award: Patients Informing Practice

PatientsLikeMe Adds Online Community for People With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

PatientsLikeMe made the following announcement last night at the TEDMED conference.  For more on Jamie Heywood’s presentation, check out what people are saying on Twitter. – – – – – – – PATIENTSLIKEME ADDS ONLINE COMMUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME Researchers Use Open Medical Network to Measure Real-World Impact of XMRV Virus Cambridge,… Continue reading PatientsLikeMe Adds Online Community for People With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Charting the course of PLS and PMA

Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS) and Progressive Muscular Atrophy (PMA) are two rare variants of the disease ALS. Normally, ALS affects the upper motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, as well as the lower motor neurons that send signals from the spinal cord directly to muscles. PLS and PMA are different because PLS only… Continue reading Charting the course of PLS and PMA

UCB and PatientsLikeMe Partner to Give People With Epilepsy a Voice in Advancing Research

Today is an exciting day for PatientsLikeMe.   In a first-of-its-kind industry-patient partnership, PatientsLikeMe is joining forces with biopharma company, UCB, to launch a new community for people with epilepsy to capture real-world experiences of the disease and help advance research. The news release announcing the partnership is below. ****** BRUSSELS, BELGIUM and CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire –… Continue reading UCB and PatientsLikeMe Partner to Give People With Epilepsy a Voice in Advancing Research

PatientsLikeMe Teams Up with 23andMe to Help Parkinson’s Patients

Despite some recent happenings in the news, we’re here to assure you that health 2.0 is still very much alive.  Here’s our recent announcement about our new partnership with 23andMe. ————– PatientsLikeMe, the first community-based personalized medicine platform for people with life-changing conditions, and 23andMe, the world’s leading personal genomics company, announce a partnership today… Continue reading PatientsLikeMe Teams Up with 23andMe to Help Parkinson’s Patients

Gambling in online PD patients higher than previously reported

When most people think of Parkinson’s disease (PD), they think of a shuffling gait, a shaky hand, and slowness of movement. As awareness has increased of the non-movement symptoms of PD, such as hallucinations and depression, we’ve seen the psychological consequences the disease can have too. More recently, studies in the scientific literature have been… Continue reading Gambling in online PD patients higher than previously reported

A new gene for ALS: What sharing your genetics could mean for research

In today’s issue of the journal Science two papers describe the discovery of a new gene for ALS (you can read the abstracts here and here). Around 90% of ALS cases are sporadic, i.e. we don’t know what causes them, but for 5-10% of patients the disease runs in their family (known as familial ALS,… Continue reading A new gene for ALS: What sharing your genetics could mean for research

ALS Symposium 2008: A history of ALS online

Back in November, Jamie Heywood and I attended the 19th International ALS/MND Symposium in Birmingham, UK.  As part of an ongoing series of blog posts reporting from that conference, I have put together a narrated slideshow which is an abridged version of a platform presentation I was asked to give at the conference about the… Continue reading ALS Symposium 2008: A history of ALS online