HOW RENEGADE RESEARCH WORKS
From patient discoveries to better care and scientific evidence.
Patients, caregivers, and clinicians often identify important clues long before they are formally studied.
When we see unexpected improvements, remission events, or promising responses to treatment, we investigate those signals through a structured process designed to determine what deserves further study.
By combining decentralized research with clinical care, we can move promising ideas toward evidence faster.
Lived Experience. Professional Expertise.
Our team combines professional expertise in patient care, research, and operations with firsthand experience navigating complex chronic illness. This unique perspective shapes everything we do, from identifying promising signals to improving care and advancing research.
Engineers • Physicians • Health Coaches • Researchers
Founder and Chief Science Officer
Tess Falor, PhD
Aerospace engineer; PhD in Earth & Planetary Science, UC Berkeley. Former NASA JPL systems engineer. Personal remission experience directly shaped the Remission Biome hypothesis. Has gone from bedbound to mild ME/CFS.
CEO, Co-founder Medical Coaching
Isabel Burnett, NBC-HWC
Systems engineer and board-certified health coach (NBC-HWC). 20 years of experience in pharma & complex chronic illness. Has lived with ME/CFS for over 40 years, learning over the years what treatments help her to get to mild illness. Directs Remission Biome and leads organizational strategy.
Chief Medical Officer
John Haughton, MD, MS
Physician-engineer with 30+ years in patient care, clinical informatics, and healthcare quality. Lived patient experience with bone cancer as a teen and reversed his own long COVID in 2023. NIH Clinical Center Patient Advisory Group. Deep expertise in clinical research and health systems.
Featured in:
How we accelerate progress
Renegade Research combines patient-led research, clinical care, and knowledge sharing to identify promising signals and
accelerate the path to better treatments.
Identify and evaluate promising signals through decentralized studies and real-world data collection.
Research-informed support for people with ME/CFS, Long COVID, and related conditions.
Connect patients, caregivers, clinicians, and researchers to share knowledge and accelerate learning.
Featured Initiatives
Remission Biome
Studying remission events after antibiotics.
● Active Seeking support for Cohort 2
Patients in the ME/CFS community occasionally report dramatic remission events after antibiotics. Rather than dismissing these experiences as anecdotes, we are studying them to identify potential biological mechanisms.
Following a successful pilot, the Renegade50 study enrolled participants from multiple countries and combined symptom tracking, microbiome analysis, organic acids testing, and immune profiling.
The study was featured in “Science News”: “How patient-led research could speed up medical innovation.”
Thanks to Vitalik Buterin's Kanro organization for funding the pilot and Renegade50 studies. We are now seeking support for the next cohort.
SIGNAL
Device lending with real-world data collection.
Seeking support for launch
SIGNAL enables people with ME/CFS and Long COVID to borrow promising therapeutic devices at home while contributing standardized longitudinal data. The program makes it possible to evaluate interventions in real-world patient populations.
The first devices to be tested will be Vielight photobiomodulation as a potential treatment for cognitive symptoms in ME/CFS and Truvaga Vagus Nerve Stimulation for ME/CFS and Long COVID.
We have pilot funds for the Vielight study, thanks to the Kanro fund. Additional funding will help launch the full multi-device infrastructure.
Emerging Treatment Trials
Testing signals before they reach larger studies.
Seeking additional support
Emerging Treatment Trials rapidly evaluate promising interventions that have shown early signals in patients. Current projects include:
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Low dose nicotine patches, follow on project after community survey
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The supplement rutin, which has signal of inducing transient remission events
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A supplement formula for Post Exertional Malaise (PEM)
These studies help identify which approaches deserve larger investment, more participants, and deeper scientific investigation.
We have pilot funds for these projects, thanks to the Kanro fund. Additional funding will add more participants and testing.
LUMINA
Building a scalable model for precision care.
● Active Seeking support for expansion
LUMINA is a precision-care pilot that combines physician-led telehealth, medical coaching, care coordination, and individualized analytics to create a more effective model for managing complex chronic illness.
The program is designed to identify what works for each patient, improve clinical outcomes, and generate the data needed to build a scalable, evidence-driven framework for personalized care.
Donor support for LUMINA helps us build the infrastructure necessary to run this program. What we learn will help us scale to the larger patient population in our medical coaching and telehealth programs.
Telehealth and Medical Coaching
Renegade’s medical coaching, care-navigation and telehealth model helps patients implement a care framework designed to help them optimize function, while simultaneously uncovering their own molecular and/or mechanical dysfunction, which in turn, improves their individual care and informs the greater community.
Coaches do not replace clinicians; they make medical care usable for patients who are too sick, cognitively impaired, or systemically fragile for the standard model. Telehealth (available in MD and NY) provides clinical expertise within this comprehensive and integrated care model. This support also strengthens the research ecosystem by improving tracking, clarifying response signals, and helping clinicians make safer decisions.
Our expert team—John Haughton, MD, MS; Board-Certified Health Coach Isabel Burnett; Science Communicator Kat Boniface; and Public Health PhD Tara Foti, have the expertise, along with the lived experience to offer you a personalized roadmap with attentive support.
Community Education and Connection
Research and Clinician's Roundtables
We bring together clinicians, researchers, patients, and advocates to translate emerging science into practical understanding and to make sure patient experience stays central to the conversation.
Roundtables have covered orthostatic intolerance, neuroinflammation, mast cell activation, microclots, venous compression, GLP-1 mechanisms, gut-brain axis dysfunction, and more. All sessions are recorded and shared publicly, so patients and clinicians who can't attend live still have access.
In a field where patients are often forced to educate their own doctors, these conversations help close the gap.
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Help our work move faster
Every study we run shortens the time patients spend waiting for answers.
If you would like to donate appreciated stock or crypto, please email development@renegade-research.org.
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