Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit medical research institute dedicated to scientific discovery surrounding complex neuroimmune diseases including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and other similarly presenting illnesses. Founded in 2005, it is currently located within the Center for Molecular Medicine at the University of Nevada, Reno. It was founded in 2005.

Whittemore Peterson Institute is a research institute and charitable foundation known for its claims that the retrovirus xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV) is associated with and may cause CFS and a variety of additional diseases. A report by WPI scientists of an association between CFS and XMRV was forcibly retracted by the journal Science when the results could not be replicated, and it was discovered that XMRV was a laboratory-created recombinant of two mouse viruses. Amid allegations of sloppiness and scientific misconduct, WPI personnel criticised the methods and motives of other scientists, implying that the negative results were part of a "cover-up" or a "bias against this disease (CFS)".

WPI was created by the parents of a CFS patient, Annette and Harvey Whittemore, and by Daniel Peterson, an early researcher of the illness. Peterson left WPI in 2010 due to concerns related to the XMRV research. The institute is affiliated with the University of Nevada, Reno. Judy Mikovits joined as research director in 2006, but was terminated by WPI in October 2011 for not turning her work over to another scientist while also coming under investigation for alleged manipulation of data in her publications related to XMRV. WPI moved to the newly constructed Center for Molecular Medicine in August 2010.

History Annette Whittemore, co-founder and president of the institute, stated that the inspiration for the institute came from her daughter, Andrea Whittemore-Goad, who was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) at the age of twelve. Whittemore stated that numerous doctors were unable to help her daughter, and that the first major improvement came ten years after her diagnosis when she was treated by Peterson with the experimental antiviral drug Ampligen. Hemispherx's new drug application for Ampligen, which permits sale and marketing, was rejected by the FDA in December 2009 and the agency asked for another clinical study. Interviewed by The New York Times, Whittemore said that "she had long believed that the syndrome was an infectious disease, but that scientists had rejected the idea", and decided that, "if there was a place of our own where we could find the answers, we could do it more quickly." Her husband Harvey said that his wife also wanted to recognize Peterson for his history of treating the illness since 1984.

The Whittemores and Peterson established the Whittemore Peterson Institute in 2005. Research began in 2006 with the opening of a small laboratory and an office on the University of Nevada, Reno campus under the direction of Judy Mikovits. WPI registered as a 501(c)(3) public charity in 2006. The Institute opened a new facility in August 2010 in the University of Nevada's Center for Molecular Medicine. Daniel Peterson left the Whittemore Peterson Institute in 2010 because of concerns about the "singular pursuit of XMRV" that was conducted without his input. His name was added to the Science paper only after a reviewer's comment. Peterson was reported to be working with Jay Levy, one of the original discoverers of HIV, to try to determine whether XMRV was truly present in the same patients examined in the Science study.

Organization and mission Annette Whittemore serves as president and Institute Administrator of the WPI. Vincent Lombardi, first author of the 2009 Science paper, was appointed as Research Director in March 2011. Lombardi, a biochemist,WPI: "Research Profiles" along with Harvey Whittemore, co-founded RedLabs USA, Inc., now Viral Immune Pathology Diagnostics (VIP Dx). Virologist Judy Mikovits was the previous research director. Her employment was terminated in October 2011. The Institute has stated that their research unit is composed of scientists from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Aging, the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, and Kings College, UK.

The WPI's stated mission is to "bring discovery, knowledge, and effective treatments to patients with illnesses that are caused by acquired dysregulation of both the immune system and the nervous system, often resulting in life long disease and disability." The Institute considers such diseases as CFS, fibromyalgia, atypical multiple sclerosis and autism to be "Neuro Immune Diseases" with an underlying infectious or environmental exposure etiology.WPI research statement However, there is currently no expert consensus on the etiology of these diseases and conditions.

Funding and support Initial funding for the institute was provided by the Whittemores, who in 2004 committed $5million, successfully lobbied the Nevada legislature for support and arranged an affiliation with their alma mater, the University of Nevada, Reno. The Nevada legislature agreed to provide $3million, and additional funding was from private donations. $10million was secured from the governor and legislature by the University of Nevada School of Medicine and the WPI for the Center for Molecular Medicine, where WPI would share space.University of Nevada School of Medicine - Center for Molecular Medicine Nevada senators John Ensign and Harry ReidReid Press Release, 13 December 2009 separately introduced legislation requesting federal funding for the institute.

Supplemental funding for WPI came from the sale of XMRV diagnostic tests by Viral Immune Pathology Diagnostics (VIP Dx), owned by the Whittemore family, with all net proceeds donated to the WPI.XMRV testing, CFIDS.org In September 2009, WPI announced that Mikovits and collaborator Jonathan Kerr of St. George's College in London received a $1.6million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for their proposal to develop new "strategies to decipher the pathophysiology of chronic fatigue syndrome".

Contradictory results and controversy

Background Judy Mikovits was introduced to Annette Whittemore at an HHV-6 Foundation conference in the spring of 2006, and soon after was hired as the research director of WPI. Mikovits had left the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and moved to California to get married in 2001. As WPI research director, Mikovits attempted to find a connection between CFS and infections. She met Bob Silverman, the co-discoverer of XMRV, at a conference in 2007 and began to look for XMRV using Silverman's reagents. In late 2008, her team had two positive results out of twenty, and adjusted the experimental conditions until all twenty samples tested positive. Mikovits decided to focus all WPI resources on XMRV. She kept the project secret from Peterson and the Whittemores, fearful that skeptics would try to derail her work, but sent test samples to Bob Silverman and to the lab of her mentor at NCI, Frank Ruscetti. Mikovits submitted the first version of the Science paper in May 2009.

Science publication and response In 2009, Lombardi et al. reported in the journal Science that they had detected XMRV DNA in 68 of 101 (67%) CFS patients, versus 8 of 218 (3.7%) healthy control subjects. Co-authors included Mikovits, her former mentor Ruscetti at the NCI, and Bob Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic. The WPI study was followed by worldwide media coverage, including reports by the BBC, National Public Radio, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Discover Magazine listed it as one of the top 100 stories of 2009. Many CFS patients greeted the report enthusiastically, feeling that XMRV granted legitimacy to their condition and hoping that XMRV would be established as a treatable cause of CFS; some, assuming causation, even "hurry(ied) to doctors for tests and antiretroviral drugs". Others urged the need for more research before drawing conclusions. In the scientific community, initial reactions were mixed. Immediately after the Science paper publication, Patrick Moore and Masahiro Shuda wrote a highly critical F1000 dissent pointing out basic errors in the paper's methods, results and conclusions, "...this manuscript has flaws that leave the reader unsure of knowing precisely what was measured".Moore P and Shuda M: F1000Prime Dissenting Opinion on [Lombardi VC et al., Science 2009, 326:585-9]. In F1000Prime, 18 Nov 2009; DOI: 10.3410/f.1165576.628853. F1000Prime.com/1165576#eval628853 Others noted the long history of proposed retrovirus-disease connections that were later debunked. John Coffin and Jonathan Stoye in a Science commentary accompanying the WPI publication were cautiously optimistic.

In September 2011, the original authors published a "Partial Retraction" of their 2009 findings, in which they acknowledged that "some of the CFS peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) DNA preparations are contaminated with XMRV plasmid DNA." In December 2011, Science retracted the 2009 paper. - Retrieved 7 Jan 2012.

Negative results The first follow-up study was published in PLoS ONE in 2010; it was conducted in the UK and found no evidence of XMRV in CFS patients. The publication sparked what The Economist dubbed a transatlantic "fight". Supporters of the two teams traded accusations of conflicts of interest, technical sloppiness, and failure to care about patients. The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that Mikovits stated the PLoS ONE study team biased their study so as to not find the virus in its samples, and that Mikovits "suspected insurance companies in the United Kingdom are behind attempts to sully the findings of the Reno study". A steady stream of consistently negative results followed the PLoS ONE report.Hohn, O; Strohschein, K; Brandt, AU; Seeher, S; Klein, S; Kurth, R; Paul, F; Meise, C; Scheibenbogen, C; Bannert, N. One study, later retracted, found no XMRV but did report evidence of murine retroviral sequences in the blood of some CFS patients. Mikovits and Ruscetti attributed the failure to replicate their results to the use of different PCR reactions and to the examination of patients who did not satisfy the same CFS diagnostic criteria. A study using the original reaction conditions did not detect XMRV in UK patients who "not only had CFS, but had considerable disability".

WPI has been included in a multi-center trial, led by Ian Lipkin, that is intended to settle the XMRV-CFS question conclusively. Samples from 150 CFS patients and 150 healthy but comparable donors are to be tested at WPI, the NIH, and the CDC. In the preliminary phase of this project, published in Science in January 2011, four patients initially tested positive at WPI and the CDC, but no XMRV was detected at NCI and no patient was positive after repeated testing.

Contamination