Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@qoto.org

From "Albert and the Whale" by Philip Hoare.

#book #bookshelf

And a more recent piece by Asher Mullard for Nature

"A thumbs-up for tofersen from the US Food and Drug Administration would reinforce the agency’s shifting approach to neurological drugs."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01039-4?error=cookies_not_supported&code=8a22efab-f191-48b7-9013-703e307abaf7&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=nature&utm_source=Twitter#ref-CR2

Here's a link to the FDA's decision:

"FDA approved Qalsody (tofersen) to treat patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) associated with a mutation in the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) gene (SOD1-ALS)."

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/fda-approves-treatment-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis-associated-mutation-sod1-gene

The FDA has approved Biogen's ALS drug, Tofersen, an antisense oligo targeting SOD1. I wrote about this back in September in my Clinical Pipeline column as part of a shift towards approving drugs based on biomarkers without clear signs of clinical efficacy*.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-022-00098-w

*You can have a look at the trial data in NEJM, in a study that concluded that "In persons with SOD1 ALS, tofersen reduced concentrations of SOD1 in CSF and of neurofilament light chains in plasma over 28 weeks but did not improve clinical end points and was associated with adverse events."

https://lnkd.in/dwGMYGgh

#NatureMedicine #amyotrophiclateralsclerosis #drugdevelopment #pharma

From Andersen-Nissen et al, PNAS 2005.

"We map the site responsible for TLR5 evasion to amino acids 89-96 of the N-terminal D1 domain, which is centrally positioned within the previously defined TLR5 recognition site. Salmonella flagellin is strongly recognized by TLR5, but mutating residues 89-96 to the corresponding H. pylori flaA sequence abolishes TLR5 recognition and also destroys bacterial motility."

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0502040102

'Flagella-driven motility is essential for the entry of H. pylori into the mucus layer and for maintaining a swimming reservoir in the mucus (Fig. 3). H. pylori has a unipolar bundle of rotating sheathed flagella, with filaments composed of two flagellin proteins that evade activating the innate immune system via TLR5 due to specific adaptation of their amino acid sequences'

#Helicobacter #InnateImmunity #HostPathogen

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41572-023-00431-8

"The European Commission is pressing ahead with a plan to cut the number of years of market exclusivity — the period before a drugmaker faces competition from generic manufacturers — from 10 to eight years, despite fierce opposition from the industry and concerns from larger countries that have greater access to medicines."

https://www.ft.com/content/ace93ce5-7baa-41c5-9f6b-2a01e64914e4

'The study, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, is the first to link a higher prevalence of Black doctors to longer life expectancy and lower mortality in Black populations.'

https://www.statnews.com/2023/04/14/black-doctors-primary-care-life-expectancy-mortality/

'She added that the UK was at a “tipping point” in its relationship with the life sciences sector, which has been battling the government over taxes on drug prices, and what it says is a lack of investment in innovation. The number of industry clinical trials in the UK has fallen 41 per cent since 2017.'

https://www.ft.com/content/f20ae6ec-8207-4709-9bf9-99613c76980e

"El riesgo está ahí, y los niveles de vacunación de la Unión Europea pueden no ser suficientes para garantizar la ausencia de brotes, según ha alertado esta semana el Centro Europeo de Control de Enfermedades (ECDC, por sus siglas en inglés)."

#Polio #Measles #Vaccines #PublicHealth

https://elpais.com/sociedad/2023-04-26/europa-teme-brotes-de-polio-y-sarampion-por-los-insuficientes-niveles-de-vacunacion.html

'Não sei se esta é matéria do foro político ou psicanalítico, mas os liberais não conseguem criticar o fascismo sem falar de comunismo e normalmente fazendo uma equivalência entre ambos. Chega o 25 de Abril e veem-se na circunstância de ter de celebrar o fim do fascismo. Claro que não se sentem confortáveis ao fazê-lo sem dizer nada sobre aquilo que verdadeiramente detestam: o comunismo. Nisso são apaixonados. É verdadeiro.'

https://www.publico.pt/2023/04/26/opiniao/opiniao/rui-rocha-lugarcomum-2047426

'Dr. Franklin’s early death also meant she missed out on the Nobel Prize, but the Nobel Assembly could have found other ways to acknowledge her contribution, said Nils Hansson, a historian of medicine at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, in Germany. Neither Dr. Watson nor Dr. Crick mentioned her when they accepted their awards, Dr. Hansson noted, although Dr. Wilkins, who also received the prize, did.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/rosalind-franklin-dna.html?