Morgellons Disease Research Project - Not for Profit
By Dr. Ahmed Kilani, Lab. Director
Background and Symptoms:
Morgellons Disease is an emerging infectious disease that infects thousands of people in the United States with major concentrations of patients in California, Texas, Florida and Oregon. The etiology of the disease is unknown and so is the treatment. The most debilitating aspect of the disease is its effect on the central nervous system. Patients who suffer from Morgellons describe similar symptoms and have difficulties with mental concentration, short term memory and brain fog. In addition, the disease can lead to depression and there are reports on the connection between Morgellons and autism in children.
Morgellons is a fairly new disease but there are many institutions that are forming teams to study this disease. The descriptions of symptoms by many Morgellons patients (as described on http://www.morgellons.org/symptoms.html) are frightening. This is an quote taken from www.morgellons.org website:
..report disturbing crawling, stinging, and biting sensations, as well as non-healing skin lesions, which are associated with highly unusual structures with highly unusual structures.
I have personally listened to detailed descriptions of the symptoms of this disease and something has got to be done. Our laboratory has adopted the task of studying this disease. Below are some pictures that we took in our laboratory for skin scab samples that we received from a Morgellons patient (anonymous). The autofluorescence of fibers seen in Morgellons disease has been reported by many researchers and it is unknown what these fibers are made off. Disturbing crawling, stinging, and biting sensations, as well as non-healing skin lesions, which are associated with highly unusual structures.
Our Role:
Our main mission at Clongen Laboratories is to work towards improving human health. We continue to do so using our extensive experience in assay development, microbiology, virology and molecular diagnostics.
Based on many discussions we had with Morgellons patients and on literature reviews of Morgellons cases, we are in the process of establising several molecular detection assays for possible causes of Morgellons disease. We will be posting a questionnaire that asks specific questions that we would like answers for from Morgellons patients in order to assist us direct our research. We are open to collaborations with other researchers who are interested in disease cause investigations.
We expect to start a nationwide project in the coming few months that would test samples from Morgellons patients for several possible pathogens (a panel) in order to establish possible connections between Morgellons disease and a causative agent. We are in the process of studying the logistics for this project and trying to allocate resources as we do not have any outside funding for this project yet.
In the meantime, I personally believe that the answer lies in the definitive identification of the source of the fibers that are observed in Morgellons disease and genetic analyses of DNA extracted from lesion sites. We are also working on soliciting government grants to finance this project.
A clarification for those that need it, we do not have the answer to what causes Morgellons although we have our hypotheses on what the cause can be. We have no evidence nor do we claim that we isolated the causative agent of the disease. Our investigations on Morgellons are NON-PROFIT. We will announce when we can start accepting patient samples (with a doctor's request) and will NOT charge patients for this investigation.
In order to assist us in this project, please send your questions, comments, recommendations or information to Morgellons@clongen.com or call Dr. Ahmed Kilani at 301-916-0173.
This is an image of a skin scab under a Fluorescence microscope 100X magnification taken on 1/7/2007
This is a closeup of the fluorescent fibers (400X)
The image below is from a skin scab from an anonymous patient on the west coast. Note the entangled fiber-like structures that resemble fungal hyphae. What is very amazing in this image (no stains used, just skin in a drop of water at 400X) is the pigmented (dark blue) fibers. This is a truly fascinating image.
