Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@social.cleverlibre.org

I've used a lot of what comes after this colon in Haber's first paragraph in classes and even though he is (reluctantly) dropping some of them, you should consider going over these classics with students!

"One of the most frustrating aspects of teaching molecular genetics is deciding what not to teach. Twenty-five years ago, my course included a number of “had-to-teach” experiments that established the fundamental concepts about the nature of DNA and of gene regulation:"

https://academic.oup.com/genetics/advance-article/doi/10.1093/genetics/iyad015/7058543?searchresult=1

This is very promising: Yasmine Belkaid is a great scientist and it is, to say the least, timely to recruit someone with a deep understanding of infectious disease - particularly of infectious diseases affecting disadvantaged communities - to run Pasteur.
A bit of good news for the weekend.

https://www.pasteur.fr/en/press-area/press-documents/professor-yasmine-belkaid-appointed-institut-pasteur-president?language=fr

Strong opening:

"Like most forms of corruption, it began with men in suits."

#book #reading #MickHerron #SloughHouse #bookshelf

"With Elefsina a cultural capital this year, it occurs to me that returning the Caryatid – kept high in an alcove in the Fitzwilliam where few visitors even look up to see her – would be a splendid gesture. I suggested this to a friend who teaches Classics at Cambridge. Though somewhat sympathetic to the idea, he pointed out that moving it back would be no easy matter – like dragging the moon from her orbit. When the Fitzwilliam was renovated, the one thing that had to remain in place was the Caryatid."

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/march/eleusinian-mysteries

'El investigador estima que en cada generación vivían en Malalmuerzo núcleos familiares de entre 8 y 12 personas “máximo”. También que, en los 5.000 años de glaciación, la cavidad estuvo siempre habitada y que allí podrían haberse cobijado hasta 250 generaciones de humanos.'

https://elpais.com/ciencia/2023-04-01/visita-a-malalmuerzo-la-cueva-que-cobijo-a-los-humanos-durante-5000-anos-de-glaciacion.html

"I have zero credentials as a child natural historian. I did not go rock-pooling or insect-collecting. I used to faint spontaneously whenever I got too excited; once I fell into a lake and fainted immediately upon impact. My stuporpower did not allow me to be intrepid. Besides, we were very much an ‘indoor’ family. But Saturday afternoons were formative, because that’s when we’d huddle in front of the TV together to watch David Attenborough’s Life on Earth."

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00080-5

"Theoretical studies predict that, under stationary environmental variation, the level of plasticity should evolve to match the predictability of selection at the timing of development. However, the extent to which patterns of evolution of plasticity for more integrated traits are mirrored by their underlying molecular mechanisms remains unclear, especially in response to well-characterized selective pressures exerted by environmental predictability."

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001895

Tools #Organoid #CRISPR #preprint

"However, to date, the editing efficiency of organoids with the use of non-viral electroporation methods has been only up to 30%, with implications for the subsequent need for selection including including turnaround time and exhaustion or adaptation of the organoid population. Here, we describe an efficient method of intestinal organoid editing using a Ribonucleoprotein CRISPR-based approach."

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.31.535108v1

I would prefer to see the IGC rebooted as an independent research institute (they are rare in Portugal). But if the Gulbenkian is hellbent on having it annexed by an existing public university, the ITQB-NOVA is a much better fit. I ran the PhD program at IGC for a few years, we could not have done it without ITQB as the academic partner. There is also a complementarity in themes, the ITQB provides expertise in structural biology and biochemistry that the IGC does not have (the wonderful, generous and deeply missed Alekos Athanasiadis was the only real IGC resource for this).

https://www.publico.pt/2023/04/01/ciencia/noticia/reitor-nova-disponivel-ficar-instituto-gulbenkian-ciencia-2044631

Interesting work in mice on checkpoint inhibitors and bacterial translocation.

"They observed translocation of some bacterial species during ICT enhanced dendritic cell activation and lymph node remodeling. These enhanced responses promoted antitumor T cell responses in tumor -raining lymph nodes and subcutaneous tumors."

#immunology #immunotherapy #Microbiota

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.abo2003

"As expected, early on-target recognition of melanoma antigens by tumor-specific CD4+ T cells was required. Surprisingly, complete tumor eradication was dependent on neutrophils and partly dependent on inducible nitric oxide synthase."

#Immunology #Immunotherapy #checkpointinhibitors #Neutrophil

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(23)00225-8.pdf