Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@qoto.org

Last Thursday, the FDA voted to approve Sarepta's microdystrophin gene therapy for #Duchenne muscular #dystrophy.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-gene-therapy-treatment-certain-patients-duchenne-muscular-dystrophy

This was not an easy call, made on the basis of a biomarker rather than efficacy data. I wrote about it last month for Nature Medicine.

#genetherapy #drugdiscovery #drugdevelopment

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-023-00052-4

Yet another study showing that tumor mutation burden is a poor predictor of response to checkpoint blockade.

"First we assembled the largest pan-cancer dataset of immunotherapy patients with sequencing and clinical data. Surprisingly, we find little evidence that TMB is predictive of response to ICB.
(...)
Our analysis shows that the use of TMB in clinical practice is not supported by available data and can deprive patients of treatment to which they are likely to respond."
#Immunology #immunooncology #immunotherapy

https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/87465

'If drama is latently political, politics is inescapably theatrical. The two have oratory and rhetoric in common, and Marx, a regular theatregoer, was keenly interested in both forms of public art.'

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n13/terry-eagleton/be-like-the-silkworm

Who grows Europe's fresh fruits & vegetables:

"Most of the laborers I spoke to told me they earn four or five euros an hour, considerably less than the legal minimum wage. They work in the sweltering heat under the greenhouses’ plastic coverings. Sometimes they put in full days, but often they are only needed for a couple of hours, if at all."

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/06/24/the-land-of-dust-and-plastic/

'In conclusion, differences in hepatocellular iron handling between male and female account, at least in part, for sexual dimorphism in induced ferroptosis of the hepatocytes.'

#Preprint #metabolism

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.24.546395v1?med=mas

'If height is an indicator of social conditions in childhood, including nutrition, is it possible that social conditions for children in the UK are worse than in many other countries and deteriorated during the decade after 2010?

It is highly plausible.'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/25/britains-shorter-children-reveal-a-grim-story-about-austerity-but-its-scars-run-far-deeper

Neuroscience vs Philosophy

'For many years, the bet was mostly forgotten. That is, until a few years ago, when it was resurfaced by Per Snaprud, a science journalist based in Stockholm who had interviewed Chalmers back in 1998. His recording of the chat reminded the pair of the terms they had set in the wager and the case of wine that was at stake.'

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02120-8

'You might think you should run to one of England’s small villages, away from the densely packed medieval city. Don’t. While fleeing the city would be a wise choice when faced with most pathogens, human density doesn’t dictate the bubonic plague’s spread. Instead, it’s the ratio of fleas to humans that matters most. The result is that most rat-infested farming villages had higher mortality rates than England’s cities.'
(via The Browser)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/could-you-survive-the-black-death-the-sack-of-rome-and-other-historical-catastrophes-180982313/?ref=thebrowser.com

If a slipper falls on a rooftop visible from an exhibition, is it art? #discussamongstyourselves