Videos available: ME/CFS Symposium 2025 – Research in Germany

In order to inform patients and the general public about the current state of ME/CFS research in Germany, the Charité Fatigue Center and the ME/CFS Research Foundation organised the “ME/CFS Symposium 2025 – Research and Health Care Studies in Germany“.

The half-day hybrid event served to inform patients, relatives, doctors, medical professionals, researchers, politicians, the media and the general public about ongoing ME/CFS research projects in Germany and took place in Berlin and as an online livestream in German.

Videos, presentations and summaries of the lectures are now available on demand on the event website. Some videos and presentations will be published at a later date due to restrictions relating to unpublished data from ongoing research or, in individual cases, cannot be shown.

The event took plac e under the auspice of Prof Carmen Scheibenbogen, Director of the Department of Immunodeficiencies and Post-Infectious Diseases and the Charité Fatigue Center (CFC) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and Prof Uta Behrends, Head of the MRI Chronic Fatigue Center (MCFC) for young people at the Technical University of Munich Hospital and Munich Clinic Schwabing.

The public symposium focused on presenting projects that deal with research into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) funded by the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The projects cover the areas of health care, treatment, basic and clinical research. A series of recently initiated studies as part of the BMG's health care research programme on Long COVID and post-COVID syndrome and other post-acute infection syndromes were presented at the symposium. Additionally, research networks and projects on the disease mechanisms of ME/CFS, which were announced at the end of 2024, and are being implemented with financial support from the BMBF, were presented to a broad audience for the first time by the individual project leaders at the symposium.

As the ME/CFS Research Foundation, we are delighted that, with the "ME/CFS Symposium 2025", held around International ME/CFS Awareness Day on 12 May, we were able to provide a unique source of information for the general public. The symposium took place in conjunction with the "International ME/CFS Conference 2025" on 12–13 May 2025, which was also organised by the Charité Fatigue Center and the ME/CFS Research Foundation and was aimed specifically at an international audience of experts (video recordings of the "International ME/CFS Conference 2025" will be made available online soon). With the "ME/CFS Symposium 2025", our aim is to make a contribution to greater transparency in the field of ME/CFS research in Germany.

---

How can you support the work of the ME/CFS Research Foundation?

There is still a long way to go before diagnosis, care and treatment of ME/CFS patients will one day become a medical and social standard. We at the ME/CFS Research Foundation are focussing on biomedical research, which we see as the key element in solving these problems (more on this in our research funding strategy and in our half year report summer 2025, which summarises our activities). To do this, we need extensive support from private donors – those affected, relatives, families, friends, associations, schools, networks, companies, initiatives, event organisers and all supporters. And if you are not able to provide direct support, you can share our story and motivate others to help. Because only together can such a feat be achieved.

We fully translate donations and other support into scientifically excellent research, networking and ultimately visible successes, i.e. better ME/CFS diagnostics and therapies. We are happy to work together with other organisations and initiatives - please contact us!

Thank you for your support!