Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@qoto.org

Job alert:

@EMBOPress is recruiting a scientific editor for The @embojournal

The deadline is tomorrow (Mar 21)

https://www.embl.org/jobs/position/EMBO00141

In my latest Clinical Pipeline column for Nature Medicine, a look at iPSC therapy for heart failure.

"Heartseed is not the only company currently performing clinical trials with iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Help Therapeutics in China is also using an approach with allogeneic iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, and Göttingen University is running a trial for patients with end- stage heart failure using engineered heart muscle composed of a mixture of iPSC- derived cardiomyocytes and stromal cells."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-023-00027-5

Add to this 400 (from a total 1450) state-sponsored PhD fellowships in this year's call.

"Serão estes sectores em Portugal tão mais inovadores do que os congéneres alemães? Não é provável. O mais plausível é que uma cegueira deliberada leve as autoridades portuguesas a tratar como I&D actividades que não o são verdadeiramente, empolando as estatísticas e concedendo incentivos fiscais e outros subsídios que em muitos casos não se justificam."

https://www.publico.pt/2023/03/20/economia/opiniao/fizeram-id-fetiche-2042985

"Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has seen a worrying drop in immunization rates over the past few years, creating pockets of under-immunized communities at heightened risk of polio infection and paralysis. Children missing polio vaccinations creates opportunities for polio to re-emerge and spread – as seen in 2022 when WPV1 originating in Pakistan was detected in paralyzed children in Malawi and Mozambique."

https://speakingofmedicine.plos.org/2023/03/17/why-is-polio-making-a-comeback-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/

'We here demonstrate that mitochondrial DNA stress upregulates the immunoproteasome and MHC class I antigen presentation pathway via cGAS/STING/type I interferon signaling resulting in cell autonomous activation of CD8+ T cells.'
Wang et al @embojournal
#Immunology

https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/embj.2022110597

'Thus, our results suggest that a heterochronic shift, involving enhanced Hox13 expression and BMP-signalling may have caused the reduction of the finfold size during the evolutionary transition from fish fins to tetrapod limbs.'

https://academic.oup.com/evolut/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/evolut/qpad043/7073948?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Tools:

"This article presents an overview of the database with the most recent additions to Rat Genome Database's genome, variant and quantitative phenotype data."

https://academic.oup.com/genetics/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/genetics/iyad042/7080056?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Interesting #preprint from the Papavasiliou group at DKFZ/Heidelberg.

"Here, we have employed site-directed RNA editing to specifically alter MHC-presented tumor epitopes at the transcript level, with no modification to the genomic DNA, to modulate their antigenicity and recognition by cognate T-cell receptors (TCR). We demonstrate that RNA editing can be employed as a precision tool to specifically modulate antigenicity through the formation of RNA editing derived neoepitopes, which we have termed "editopes"'.

#Immunology #immunotherapy

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.16.532918v1?med=mas

'Talvez este enigma não tenha solução. O ministro de um Governo que se afirma de esquerda, e que tem maioria absoluta, pensa que o país se situa demasiado à esquerda e propõe que se combata essa ideologia, ou seja (nas suas palavras), que se combatam esses “preconceitos”.

https://www.publico.pt/2023/03/19/politica/opiniao/costa-silva-rui-nabeiro-terra-infinito-2043004

"Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the ATG5 gene, which encodes for a protein required for the cellular recycling process of autophagy, has been associated with higher risk for developing severe asthma. However, the exact role for ATG5 during allergic inflammation and whether other autophagy proteins are involved remains elusive."

#Immunology #allergy #asthma #Preprint #autophagy

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.16.533006v1