In 2004, Amy Proal got an infection that changed her life. 'I was in my pre-med, last year of college, and totally tanked,' she says. 'No one could tell me what it was, everybody said my blood work was fine ' sent to a psychiatrist, the usual story.' She started reading papers from her sickbed and soon realized that she wasn't the only one with unexplained symptoms that lingered after an infection. A year later, she was diagnosed with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome). She managed to improve her symptoms with antivirals and other drugs, and went on to do a PhD in microbiology, studying the lasting consequences of pathogens. In 2018, she co-founded PolyBio, a foundation in Medford, Massachusetts, that advances research on infection-associated chronic illnesses. 'Then,' Proal says, 'COVID hit.' COVID-19 killed millions of people, and left millions of others with lingering health problems caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The chronic condition became known as...
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