Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@qoto.org

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

A reflection on leaving academia by Brooke Morriswood at @TIR_scienceblog
This is one of my favorite blogs, with thoughtful pieces on topics like how to write a paper, so I'll be watching this space to see what Brooke does next.

"After 24 years in academia – 8 years as an undergraduate and postgraduate, 8 years as a postdoc, and 8 years as a group leader – I’m leaving. It’s a decision and a choice helped by the realisation that a change was coming regardless of what direction I went in."

https://totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2023/03/19/changing-lanes/#more-3029

"The intense political debate, now in its fourth year, has at times turned scientists into lobbyists, competing for policymakers’ time and favor. Dr. Relman is just one of several researchers and like-minded thinkers who has successfully worked the corridors of power in Washington to force journalists, policymakers and skeptical Democrats to take the lab leak idea seriously."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/us/politics/covid-origins-lab-leak-politics.html

"But in September 1943, as Stalin imagined a role for a victorious Soviet Union in a postwar world, he began to reconsider his government’s position with regards to the Russian Orthodox Church, and eventually to the entire question of the role of religion in an atheist empire. At this meeting, Stalin presented these men with a bold proposal: the same Soviet state that had destroyed their Church was now going to devote its resources to bringing it back."

https://aeon.co/essays/how-stalin-enlisted-the-orthodox-church-to-help-control-ukraine

Protip:

If you're working on the Great Immunological Novel, make sure your characters from the 70s say "suppressor T cells" and not "Tregs".

(fm Benjamin Dreyer's wonderful 'Dreyer's English).

"What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html