Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@social.cleverlibre.org

My latest Clinical Pipeline column at #NatureMedicine is just out.

This was an interesting piece for me, to see what's going with drugs targeting #TGFbeta family molecules in a clinical setting, in this case an activin receptor 2a/IgG1 Fc domain fusion protein selectively mopping up ligands. The drug's been through trials in oncology, thalassemia & other conditions, but it looks like it had a good hit in pulmonary arterial #hypertension.

#ClinicalTrial

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-022-00109-w

"Dysbiosis in the gut microbiota impacts several systemic diseases. One possible mechanism is the migration of perturbed intestinal immunocytes to extra-intestinal tissues. Combining the Kaede photoconvertible mouse model and single-cell genomics, we generated a detailed map of migratory trajectories from the colon, at baseline and during intestinal and extra-intestinal inflammation."

#Immunology #MucosalImmunology #preprint

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.16.516757v1?med=mas

'As the 1950s wound down, the proliferation of mass-produced, heavily marketed light lagers took an increasing toll on America’s—and San Francisco’s—small brewers. But a number of local establishments still proudly featured Anchor’s signature product, in particular the Crystal Palace Market between Market and Mission at 8th Street. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, it was a “sprawling, pungent, cheap and exotic carnival of delicatessen and delicacy.”

https://lithub.com/the-model-for-americas-modern-craft-beer-boom-inside-the-small-brewer-scene-in-1950s-san-francisco/

"Amanda Jones is a librarian. This summer, worried that her town might try to ban books, she spoke up at a public library board meeting about the importance of a diverse collection and preserving young people’s access to books with sexual health content and L.G.B.T.Q. themes.

A few days later, she found herself accused online of advocating for pornography in the children’s section. That was not unusual — fights about book banning have gotten ugly all over the country. But in response, Amanda did something that few others have done.

[You can listen to this episode of “First Person” on Apple, Spotify Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]"

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/opinion/librarian-book-bans-freedom-of-speech.html

Half-way through the latest Robert Harris novel, Act of Oblivion - it's great, almost as good as An Officer and a Spy.
#Books #novel

"As Pearson later remembered, “The very notion that the Darwinian theory might after all be capable of statistical demonstration seemed to excite all sorts and conditions of men to hostility. Weldon, instead of being allowed to do his own work in his own way, had to be constantly replying to letters, some even 18 sheets long … These letters were not sympathetic and suggestive, but mostly purely controversial,” [1]."

https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1010379

"The most up-to-date concepts on the control of cell metabolism through cell intrinsic signaling mechanisms, the effect of the tissue microenvironment and nutrient availability on metabolism, and the potential for these pathways to be targeted or modified in disease are reviewed here and this volume"
#Immunology #Metabolism

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/imr.12858?sid=nlm%3Apubmed

"Together, we propose that the stability of the spike in the extracellular milieu can be different for SARS-CoV-2 variants, which mainly affects the efficiency of infection of cells with low ACE2 levels. In this context, we identified a human bronchial cell line, NCI-H1299 cells, with undetectable ACE2 protein expression levels to be used as a model cell line for extended SARS-CoV-2 infection stability studies in the future."

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001871#sec010

#Drosophila #innateimmunity

"We found that Aspergillus fumigatus kills Drosophila Toll pathway mutants without invasion because its dissemination is blocked by melanization, suggesting a role for Toll in host defense distinct from resistance."

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.18.504437v1#review