2025 Annual Meeting
Overlooked: Less Studied Pathologies across ME/CFS, Long COVID, and Related Illnesses
Sunday, October 26, 2025
1:00 PM – 3:00PM EST on Zoom
Guest Speaker: Beth Pollack, Research Scientist,
Tal Research Group, MIT Department of Biological Engineering
Beth Pollack discussed aspects of ME/CFS, Long COVID, and co-occurring conditions that profoundly impact patients yet remain under-researched and frequently overlooked. She provided an overview of the current research landscape and findings, shared insights from emerging research at MIT, and highlighted new collaborative projects with her colleagues that are advancing our understanding of these topics.
Focus areas included common comorbid conditions; hypermobility and connective tissue damage; spinal pathologies; environmental sensitivities; reproductive conditions, and more. Her talk synthesized what is currently known, identified critical gaps in understanding, and illuminated the next steps and opportunities for more comprehensive research that can inform clinical care.
Bio: Beth Pollack, Research Scientist, MIT
Beth Pollack is a Research Scientist in the Department of Biological Engineering in the Tal Research Group at MIT, where she leads research on ME/CFS and the overlaps among infection-associated chronic illnesses. Her work focuses on understudied pathologies that significantly impact patients, with the goal of accelerating knowledge, clinical research, and treatments. She is currently a collaborator on four clinical studies on infection-associated chronic illnesses, and also serves on two NIH RECOVER working groups focused on Long COVID therapeutics and clinical trial design.
Beth was chair of the NIH ME/CFS Research Roadmap subgroup on Less Studied Pathologies, was previously a senior researcher at Harvard, and in 2024 was named a United States Leader by the Obama Foundation. Committed to increasing understanding and awareness of chronic illness, she has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, NPR, and other publications.