Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@qoto.org

I noticed during #COVID #CovidTwitter how influencers would do or say bold/brave true things to build credibility & trust. But later once they have a huge audience, they’d begin to blend in another agenda. It’s outright methodical and yeah, effin’ creepy. #media #politics #elections

'US biotech Moderna has put plans to build a vaccine plant in Kenya on hold, in a sign that moves to invest in pandemic preparedness in Africa have dropped down the agenda as sales of Covid-19 jabs decline.'

https://www.ft.com/content/dbcce8f3-198e-42c2-89b7-14e6147007ba

The razor's edge, graduate student edition:

'So when you're starting out, taking some time to think through the experiment is really important, just so long as that doesn't turn into "taking some time to freak out about the experiment", which can be easy to do. '

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/pursuit-perfection

'We found that both non-infected and Rv-infected focal individuals spatially avoided infected conspecifics, while there were no signs of generalized social distancing, nor self-isolation. Spatial avoidance of infected conspecifics may effectively hinder disease transmission.'

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.10.588850v1?med=mas

'The majority of vaccines licenced to date have been assessed for efficacy against clinical disease endpoints in randomised controlled trials (RCT’s), this approach is viewed as the gold standard method to demonstrate the efficacy data required by regulators for licensure. However, this traditional approach is not always feasible in certain situations.'

#Immunology

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-024-00873-5

'Esta investigação do GPAHE surge na mesma semana em que o Expresso, o Direkt36 e o Le Monde noticiaram que Pedro Vargas David, o empresário português que detém os jornais “Sol” e “i”, recebeu €45 milhões do estado húngaro para comprar a Euronews.'

https://expresso.pt/internacional/europa/2024-04-13-viktor-orban-usa-universidades-agencias-noticiosas-e-centros-de-estudo-na-europa-para-disseminar-propaganda-anti-lgbtq--e-anti-imigracao-526fb045

Petanque & sakura

'Our recent search of data available from ClinicalTrials.gov, Cortellis and The Antibody Society revealed more than 300 clinical trials of more than 200 different bispecific molecules, with approximately 75% used to treat solid tumours and 25% to treat haematological malignancies'
#Immunology #Immunotherapy

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41573-024-00896-6

'Here we implemented two orthogonal approaches to investigate AIRE’s cis-regulatory mechanisms: construction of a convolutional neural network and leveraging natural genetic variation through analysis of F1 hybrid mice. Both approaches nominated Z-DNA and NFE2–MAF as putative positive influences on AIRE’s target choices'
#Immunology
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07169-7

"Liz Truss’s memoir, Ten Years to Save the West, first penetrated the nation’s consciousness with her reflections on the death of Queen Elizabeth II. “Why me?” the former prime minister wrote. “Why now?” It was actually pretty funny, the depth and shamelessness of her narcissism; so funny, in fact, that I felt that, somewhere along the line, she had been stitched up by an editor. Fair play; I too would stitch her up in that job."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2024/apr/15/the-greatest-mystery-of-modern-politics-liz-trusss-self-belief

'In the present study, we screened a large-scale randomly mutagenized mouse library by electrocardiography to establish a disease model of IASs and consequently found one pedigree that exhibited spontaneous ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) followed by SCD within 1 y after birth.'

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2218204121

'Seventy-five percent of the references in NCBI/PubMed to the search word “symbiosis” (first present in 1913) have been published since 2006, as have 99% of the references to “microbiota” (first appearing in 1956). This new knowledge base will change subdisciplines of biology to varying degrees. Some areas, such as biomechanics, are likely to be little affected, but others, including immunology and developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and neurobiology, are already experiencing a reshaping as symbiosis is incorporated into their research frameworks.'

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002571

'The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking for experienced and highly qualified experts to serve as members of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), for a three-year appointment, starting January 2025 or January 2026.'

https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/open-call-for-experts--who-strategic-advisory-group-of-experts-on-immunization-(sage)

"The AI assessment aid works with electronic health records to digest 22 pieces of clinical information and biomarkers before assigning a patient to one of four risk levels linked to the possibility of developing sepsis complications. The system itself does not provide alerts but aims to give staff time to plan for a potentially longer hospital stay as well as a patient’s need for intensive care or ventilation."

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/roche-picks-prenosis-newly-cleared-sepsis-ai-tool-distribution

'FEBS Booster Fund: a one-off €25,000 grant for novel projects led by newly independent academic researchers, to be used for small equipment, consumables, and research-based travel.
Apply by 1 May 2024.'

https://www.febs.org/funding/booster-fund/

'For five days in 1910, João Cândido Felisberto held Rio de Janeiro hostage under the guns of the Brazilian fleet, in an uprising known as the Revolt of the Lash.
Thousands of Black sailors, some of whom had been radicalized when they were sent for training in Newcastle upon Tyne, joined the mutiny, which took place just 22 years after Brazil abolished slavery.'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/15/brazil-naval-mutiny-leader-candido-england

'By the time I spoke to Uhart, the breeding season in Patagonia had ended. Over 17,000 baby elephant seals—96 percent or more of the juveniles in the region—were estimated to have died, as well as more than 500,000 birds. In some areas there were no longer any organisms to infect. Still, Uhart told me, she saw sick and dead animals on each visit to the beach: a sea lion, a duck, a tern. “My suspicion is that the virus will linger on,” she said. “We just don’t know whether it will continue to cause epidemic outbreaks, or whether it will just trickle in like it is now.”

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/04/14/the-next-mass-extinction/

Very interesting structures of the GluN1/N3 variant NMDA receptor from Michalski and Furukawa. Unprecedented 80º rotation of the GluN3 subunit into a desensitised conformation, which could be disrupted by mutation.

#biophysics #receptors #neuroscience

https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.adl5952