Monthly Archives: July 2022

There Is No Such Thing As A Lightning Wallet – Bitcoin Magazine

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 3:05 am

This is an opinion editorial by Roy Sheinfeld, cofounder and CEO of Breez.

Although Breez often ranks highly on lists of the best Lightning wallets, attentive readers will have noticed that we never refer to Breez as a wallet. Were not trying to confuse anyone. On the contrary, its the language of wallets in the context of Bitcoin and Lightning thats confusing.

Wouldnt it be odd to hear someone refer to a fiat payment app, like CashApp, PayPal, or Venmo as a wallet? Nobody, not even the companies themselves, describes them as wallets. And though many Bitcoin and Lightning companies and apps are both more versatile and further removed from what we normally think of as wallets, thats still what we call them.

This is a very common misconstrual, as Gigi has also noted and (independently) debunked. So lets think about what a wallet really is, what a Bitcoin wallet really is, what a Lightning wallet really is, and what we should call these things instead of wallets. We will spare no effort in pursuit of truth and liberating ourselves from scare quotes.

A wallet is a flat case or pouch often used to carry small personal items such as paper currency, credit cards; identification documents such as driver's license, identification card, club card; photographs, transit pass, business cards and other paper or laminated cards. As Giacomo Zucco put it in a recent chat we had, wallets contain little documents and pieces of information we use to interact with others.

What we call wallets first showed up around the 17th century, concurrent with the rise of paper money. And since there are only so many ways to make a small folding case to carry money, wallets havent changed much over the centuries. Compare these two specimens:

On the left is a leather wallet that archaeologists found in the wreckage of a 160-year-old submarine, and on the right is a typical wallet anyone might have in their pocket today.

The big difference isnt in the wallets, but in their contents. The modern wallet contains credit cards, which arose in the middle of the last century. Its no coincidence that credit cards entered the market around the same time as machine-readable standards enabled a transformation from physical to electronic money.

The more we rely on electronic money of whatever kind, the less we rely on wallets. The quantity of electronic money out there now outstrips physical money by a ratio of about 20:1 and each card in the modern wallet can contain balances dozens of times greater than the antique wallet could hold.

Now consider: if you took the modern wallet back 160 years to the time of the antique wallet, people back then could almost certainly tell you what it is and what its used for. Explaining credit and debit cards would be challenging, but they are still physical objects to represent electronic money. The next step would be to explain fiat payment apps, like PayPal. Your great-great-great-grandparents would positively no longer see a wallet there. By the time you try to explain your favorite Bitcoin/Lightning wallet, theyd not even be sure youre speaking the same language.

We in the 21st century might want to expand the definition. Language evolves. Like Giacomo said, wallets contain documents and little pieces of information that let us interact with others. Phones can now contain digital driving licenses (for as long as driving licenses are still a thing), credit card information, photos of loved ones, passwords, contact info and membership info phones can contain the digital versions of everything we carry in leather wallets.

As a matter of fact, the term wallet might cover more of the functions these devices perform than phone. (While were on the topic of proper labeling, phone is such an outdated term! Here in Israel, nobody younger than Methuselah refers to their mobile device as a phone. Get with it anglophones.) So the 21st century correlate of the leather wallet is the phone, right?

But then does it still make sense to call a specific, single-purpose app a wallet? Many apps store information that is readily available to us. If we dont refer to a contacts app on the device as a wallet, even though it replaces traditional business cards, why use that term for a Bitcoin app like BlueWallet or Wallet of Satoshi? Its the phone itself that is the wallet, not the apps. Apps are more like the compartments in the wallet. If were going to adapt the term wallet to our transhumanist age, lets do it right.

Wallets havent changed, but money has, how we store information has, and the term wallet no longer fits.

Bitcoin wallets and physical wallets are both storage media. Physical wallets store bills and cards that are marked with patterns of information. The right tokens with the right patterns denote value, and wallets move those tokens around in meatspace.

Bitcoin wallets also store patterns of information, but they dont directly store value. Bitcoins value is stored only as records on the public blockchain. Bitcoin wallets store private keys that allow users to authorize changes to the blockchain on their behalf. Anything that can store a long string of numbers (i.e., private keys) a piece of paper, neurons, or a fancy, password-protected flash drive would count as a bitcoin wallet. In Bitcoin, the right private keys with the right patterns indirectly denote value, because these keys allow you to move value around in cyberspace.

When friends split a tab with cash, and bills move from one wallet to another, the value is transported. When friends split a tab with bitcoin, the sender encrypts a transaction with the recipients public key and then their numbers shift around on the blockchain, where the value was and remains.

Lets compare again these two kinds of transactions visually:

Again, its easy to see where a wallet fits into the transaction on the left: cash exits wallet A, changes hands, enters wallet B. But when it comes to Bitcoin, what we call wallets are those colored boxes at the bottom containing the private keys. Does does anyone else find that metaphor silly? Like, if a piece of paper, neurons and a flash drive can all be called wallets, even though none of them contain any physical tokens of value or even any bitcoin (whatever that would mean), then isnt that metaphor misleading and unhelpful?

As Kiara Bickers puts it in her great book, Bitcoin Clarity,

With a physical wallet, you are directly holding cash that has value, but with a digital wallet you never hold the value directly, you only ever hold access to it on the blockchain. If you cross a national border from one country into another, did your bitcoin move with you? Well, no. The private keys stored in your bitcoin wallet represent only the ability to move funds, not the funds themselves. (p. 18)

If you want a better term that is less misleading and more accurately descriptive, how about signers? Same denotation plus vastly improved connotations equals Pareto-efficient semantics.

(Hat Tip to NVK and Conor Okus for helping me to think through this question and terminology.)

The term wallet is applied to all manner of Lightning apps. While that term misses the mark in every case, it errs in different directions depending on the type of app in question. Interestingly, reflecting on how Lightning apps are not like wallets does help to identify what they are like, so lets do that.

Custodial wallets dont transport tokens of value, but they do have an analog in the fiat world: bank accounts. Remember how custodial accounts actually work:

In effect, whoevers operating the custodial wallet is an establishment for the custody [and] exchange of money and for facilitating the transmission of funds. In other words, theyre a bank, and thats not my judgment, its the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Thats just what the word means. And the wallet they provide is an arrangement in which a bank keeps your money but makes it available to you when you want it i.e., a bank account (Cambridge American Dictionary).

Custodial wallets are merely user interfaces for these accounts. They just provide a way for users to pass instructions to and receive messages from the custodial intermediary. Not really wallets, are they?

What a custodial wallet would look like in real life. Doesnt look anything like a wallet, does it? (Image: Adam Norman)

So an actual wallet contains tokens of value to carry them around physical space. A bitcoin wallet (or a signer, remember?), holds your keys, signs transactions and broadcasts them to the network. Custodial Lightning wallets are really like bank accounts, where the value is entrusted to a third-party who transacts on the users behalf.

So what about noncustodial Lightning wallets? (Ugh. It feels awkward just typing that.)

The Lightning Network consists of nodes connected by payment channels. Signing plays a role here too, because every Lightning transaction is a Bitcoin transaction. However, Lightning transactions require routing bitcoin from one Lightning node to another and another and another, along their payment channels, until the payment reaches its destination.

The point is that Lightning payment apps arent just flashy user interfaces to manage wallets or account balances they have to route payments through a fluctuating network graph. And ensuring a decent routing-success rate entails a number of subsidiary tasks. These include, for example, channel management opening and closing channels with other nodes in the network and liquidity management ensuring enough outbound and inbound liquidity.

Some users prefer managing their liquidity and available routes manually on self-hosted nodes. Most users, though, delegate these technical tasks to Lightning service providers, like Breez and Phoenix.

Reading this, did anyone think Well, thats simple! Theyre just describing a wallet!? Thats the point. There is no such thing as a Lightning wallet.

Give this network graph to a toddler with a box of crayons and try to find your way from minute to minute. Thats routing on the Lightning network. (Image: Annie Mole)

Metaphors are great when they help people to communicate a complex reality vividly and succinctly. When E.M. Forster writes that Life is a public performance on the violin in which you must learn the instrument as you go along, it hits. It doesnt require explanation; its already an explanation of something much bigger. Lightning wallet is not like that. As a metaphor, it confuses, misleads and obfuscates.

A better approach would probably be to use terms that describe functions (think: bolt cutter). If an app sends and receives payments, let's call it a payment app. If it's used to play podcasts and stream sats to podcasters, call it a podcast app. If it's used to manage finances, call it a finance app. This applies equally to bitcoin and fiat (remember PayPal, Venmo, CashApp etc.). The apps name should derive from its function, not how it implements that function. And if we must use metaphors, those metaphors should at least reflect the current state of our technological reality.

Were sure that many people will continue to refer to Lightning payment apps and custodial accounts as wallets, and that legislating language never works (or we would be writing these posts in Esperanto, rajto?). Im all for free speech, but simply using a term does not make it accurate or valid. Its still important to think about the relation between how we talk about Lightning and how we think about Lightning, and how the former might influence the latter for better or worse.

Our world is made of concepts (ask Immanuel Kant), and concepts are made of language (ask Ludwig Wittgenstein). Therefore, getting the language right should help us understand and shape the world. How do you expect to launch the Lightning revolution with a mere wallet?

This is a guest post by Roy Sheinfeld. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

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There Is No Such Thing As A Lightning Wallet - Bitcoin Magazine

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Dean Kamen on the power of celebrating your own obsoletion – TechCrunch

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:59 am

More than 40 years and 1,000 or so patents after selling his first company, AutoSyringe, to healthcare giant Baxter, Dean Kamen still gets a charge describing breakthrough innovation. Its been five years since his organ fabricating project ARMI (Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute) divided critics.

The project made more waves early last month, at the CNN-hosted conference Life Itself. Kamen paints the picture appearing on a panel at TC Sessions: Robotics today:

Doris Taylor, who moved up here from where she spent more than a decade in Texas, at the Texas Heart Institute, she gets on stage with a beaker. In the beaker is a miniature, pediatric-scale beating heart that was manufactured with induced pluripotent stem cells were put into a scaffold of preexisting organ. Within an hour of that presentation, Martine Rothblatt, the founder and chairman of United Therapeutics, is on stage and they roll out from backstage an almost surrealistic, lit from the top of the box. A panel opens, and what emerges out of the top of this platform is a scaffold of a human lung, that was printed, entirely printed at the smallest scale any printer has ever operated.

Inventor Dean Kamen looks on as over 110,000 pounds of personal protective equipment (PPE), shipped from Shanghai, China, is unloaded from a cargo plane at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, Thursday, April 30, 2020. The equipment will be used for medical workers and first responders in their fight against the virus outbreak. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Kamen is first to admit, however, that the path to all success is paved with failure. The trick is learning the right lesson.

What Ive learned from failure is go back and decide was the fundamental goal wrong thats why it failed, you succeeded, but nobody needs this or did the available technology and your systems integration and application have it wrong, in which case, youve now learned enough, go try again, go use a different approach, Kamen explains. Pick yourself up, try again, using a different approach. And it really doesnt matter how many times you fall down. If you fall down five times, but you stand up six, its okay. And in the end, you only need a win every once in a while to keep your confidence up. And hopefully, to give you the resources to keep going even though inevitably youll have failures, let the projects fail, dont let the people fail.

These are among the fundamentals Kamen has attempted to infuse into FIRST, the education program he co-founded in 1989, with MIT professor Woodie Flowers. It is best known for its robotics competitions, which center around competitive builds of robots and other projects, bringing the teamwork and enthusiasm of sports to STEM education subjects that might otherwise turn off students who traditionally encounter them in more formal and staid settings.

Kids wont go to class, or theyll take math for 45 minutes between phonics and spelling, one day a week. But theyll go after school for three hourse, every single day to get better at football or get better at basketball. So I said, look, were not competing for the hearts and minds of kids with the science fair and the spelling bee, were competing with the things that they invest all of their time, energy and passion in. So lets use that model make it aspirational, make it after school. Dont give them quizzes and tests, give them letters and trophies. Bring the school band and the mascots.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), right, looks toward inventor Dean Kamen as over 110,000 pounds of personal protective equipment (PPE) from Shanghai, China, delivered to protect medical workers and first responders fighting the COVID-19 virus outbreak, is unloaded from a cargo plane at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire, Thursday, April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Perhaps the hardest-fought lesson of all, however, is understanding, accepting and even welcoming the fact that progress in technology and sciences means that one day your best work will be eclipsed.

You have to be more than prepared for it. You have to be confident it will happen, and you have to celebrate it. I celebrate it more when its me that obsoleted the last thing I did, but if somebody else can obsolete it and if I get to a point where I need a better clinical solution than a dialysis machine or an insulin pump, if I can get to a place with somebody elses technology to gave me a new organ or a prosthetic limb or something, I need to have a better quality of life, I will thank that person. And I hope I will return that favor by giving them something of value that we invented.

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Dean Kamen on the power of celebrating your own obsoletion - TechCrunch

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Westin and Sehn Carve Out the Role of CAR T-Cell Therapy and Transplant in Primary Refractory DLBCL – OncLive

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:59 am

CAR T-cell therapy, autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT), and novel agents each have a role to play in the second-line management of patients with primary refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), according to Jason Westin, MD, MS, FACP, and Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, who provided perspective on the optimal use of each modality during a case-based presentation at the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference.1,2

Westin, director, Lymphoma Clinical Research, section chief, Aggressive Lymphoma, and associate professor, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma, Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, started the session by presenting a case of a 70-year-old man with a failure to thrive with progressive bowel obstruction. The man had decreased urine output, a performance status of 1, rising lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) of 1.5 x the upper limit of normal, and an International Prognostic Index (IPI) of 4. A biopsy confirmed high-grade double-hit DLBCL with MYC and BCL2 translocations.

The patient was started with dose-adjusted R-EPOCH and although his gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms improved during the first cycle of chemotherapy, he developed worsening shoulder pain in weeks 2 and 3 of cycle 2 of treatment. An interim PET scan performed after 2 cycles of treatment confirmed a significant improvement in tumor burden but persistent hypermetabolic lesion in the right humerus and a standardized uptake value of 7.

There is a lot of controversy in our field about how we interpret an interim positive PET [result], Westin said. We know the negative predictive value is strong, but the positive predictive value is rather poor.

As such, a bone biopsy was performed on the lesion in the humerus, confirming CD10-positive B-cell lymphoma. Westin argued that the patient was unlikely to achieve a complete response (CR) at the end of treatment, and as such, alternative regimens should then be considered. However, patients with refractory disease have poor outcomes with salvage chemotherapy, which led Westin to consider a clinical trial.

[ZUMA-12 (NCT03761056)] was the clinical trial we had open at the time, which Ill argue is something we should consider for our patients who have high-risk disease in the frontline setting: an early switch to a CAR T-cell therapy, Westin said.

The phase 2 trial enrolled patients with high-grade double-hit or triple-hit B-cell lymphoma and large B-cell lymphoma with an IPI score of at least 3.3 Patients had to have a positive interim PET scan following 2 cycles of an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody and anthracycline-containing regimen.

Patients underwent leukapheresis and optional nonchemotherapy bridging therapy followed by conditioning chemotherapy consisting of 30 mg/m2 of intravenous (IV) fludarabine and 500 mg/m2 of IV cyclophosphamide on days 5, 4, and 3. They subsequently received a single IV infusion of axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel; Yescarta) at 2 x 106 CAR T cells/kg on day 0.

The CR rate achieved with the CAR T-cell therapy was impressive, according to Westin, at 78% (n = 29) and benefit was consistent across subgroups. The 1-year event-free survival rate with axi-cel was 72.5% (95% CI, 53.1%-84.9%).

In terms of safety, cytokine release syndrome (CRS) occurred in all patients, but the rate of grade 3 CRS was low, at 8%, Westin said.

Westin acknowledged that although axi-cel could be saved for relapse, findings presented at the 2021 ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition comparing the populations in ZUMA-12 and ZUMA-1 (NCT02348216) showed better CAR T-cell expansion in patients who had received less chemotherapy.4

With this in mind, the patient was enrolled to ZUMA-12. He developed late, low-grade CRS and immune effector cellassociated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) but went on to achieve a CR with treatment.

Hes more than 2 years out now without any relapse or any late toxicities, Westin said. Should you switch all patients with a positive interim PET? No. However, if you have circulating tumor DNA or a positive biopsy, its reasonable to consider switching to a different therapy. Having a non-chemotherapy option for chemorefractory disease makes treatment switch more attractive.

Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, a clinical associate professor in the division of medical oncology at the University of British Columbia and the British Columbia Cancer Agency, subsequently presented a case of a 66-year-old man with stage IVB DLBCL with lymphadenopathy above and below the diaphragm. He had a large bowel mass that was biopsied, confirming germinal center B-cell DLBCL and was negative for MYC, BCL2, and BCL6 on fluorescence in situ hybridization.

The patient was treated with 6 cycles of R-CHOP and achieved a CR; however, 6 months later, the patient developed GI bleeding and was found to have recurrent DLBCL of the GI tract. He was started on 2 cycles of R-GDP and achieved a CR, with the intention of heading to ASCT.

Our longstanding management for relapsed/refractory DLBCL has been to take patients down the ASCT route, Sehn stated. However, only approximately half of patients will respond to salvage chemotherapy and proceed to transplant, making the decision on what to pursue a difficult one, Sehn explained.

The 3 randomized trials that have evaluated second-line CAR T-cell therapyZUMA-7 (NCT03391466), TRANSFORM (NCT03575351), and BELINDA (NCT03570892)have yet to show an overall survival (OS) benefit, supporting the rationale to opt for a stepwise approach.

Sehn noted that although all 3 trials demonstrated that CAR T-cell therapy would be the preferred approach in the second-line setting in the intent-to-treat population, they do not provide insight into the preferred approach for patients who respond to salvage chemotherapy.

This is a scenario we all face because most people do receive bridging therapy prior to going on to CAR T-cell therapy, even if your intention is to give it in the second-line setting, Sehn said. As such, we all face this question.

Although not randomized data, Sehn highlighted findings from a Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research retrospective registry analysis which showed that patients in partial remission after salvage chemotherapy had a lower rate of relapse and disease progression (P = .010), as well as improved OS (P = .007).5

Moreover, supplementary findings from the ZUMA-7 trial demonstrated a comparable duration of response among responders, regardless of whether they were randomized to axi-cel or standard of care (HR, 0.763; 95% CI, 0.488-1.108).6

Additionally, Sehn stated that the one-size-fits-all design of the CAR T-cell therapy trials is not likely to hold up in the real world because not everyone will benefit from cellular therapy. Sehn cited data published in Blood Advances showing that predictive factors, including at least 2 extranodal sites, total metabolic tumor volume greater than 80 mL, and elevated LDH, is associated with poor outcomes following CAR T-cell therapy.7

In the CAR T trials, everybody went to CAR T based on an intent-to-treat approach, and even though those arms did better, most patients did relapse or progress subsequently, Sehn said. Just blindly taking everyone on to CAR T is probably not going to be feasible in most clinical settings.

In addition, the short- and long-term toxicities associated with CAR T-cell therapy are worth considering, said Sehn, who highlighted CRS, ICANS, prolonged cytopenias, hypogammaglobulinemia, CD19 loss, and B-cell aplasia in particular, which was present in 34% of patients on the ZUMA-7 trial up to 18 months after infusion.5

For patients who are not candidates to receive CAR T-cell therapy or ASCT, Sehn highlighted the potential of novel agents such as polatuzumab vedotin-piiq (Polivy) plus bendamustine and rituximab (Rituxan) and the combination of tafasitamab-cxix (Monjuvi) and lenalidomide (Revlimid), which have shown responses of 40.2% and 60%, and a median progression-free survival of 5.1 months and 11.6 months, respectively.7,8

For patients with primary refractory or early relapsing DLBCL, the data do argue for CAR T-cell therapy as the preferred potential second-line therapy. However, theres still a role for ASCT; [this approach] still might be suitable for patients who respond to salvage or bridging therapy, Sehn concluded. One of the main things we need to figure out is who shouldnt go to CAR T-cell therapy, as its unlikely to work for patients with fully uncontrollable disease. As far as the novel agents go, there are encouraging data to suggest that these [drugs] will improve outcomes in the refractory setting, although we do need predictive markers to figure out which option to select for which patient.

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Westin and Sehn Carve Out the Role of CAR T-Cell Therapy and Transplant in Primary Refractory DLBCL - OncLive

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Unanticipated findings cast new light on the genetic regulation of different brain tumors – Baylor College of Medicine

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:59 am

Cancer cells express different genes than normal cells, and these new gene expression patterns are key to cancer behavior. One way cells can alter gene expression is by adding small chemical modifications to the DNA or associated proteins called epigenetic markers that determine which genes are turned on or off.

Take brain tumors, for example. A team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine has investigated the genetic regulation of brain tumor behavior. Specifically, they studied Sox9-mediated mechanisms of epigenetic dysregulation in two mouse models of human brain tumors: high-grade glioma (HGG) and ependymoma (EPN).

Sox9, a well-known transcription factor, has emerged as a key regulator of epigenetic modifications and gene expression programs that contribute to brain tumor growth; however, how Sox9 achieves this is not well known, said co-first author Dr. Debosmita Sardar, postdoctoral associate in the lab of Dr. Benjamin Deneen at Baylor.

We knew that Sox9 is elevated in both HGG and EPN. Also, we knew that these tumors have different epigenetic profiles, said co-first author Hsiao-Chi-Eileen-Chen, graduate student in the Deneen lab. We wanted to know whether Sox9 was involved in shaping these distinct profiles and the mechanism that led to them.

We expected that Sox9s contribution to set up the tumors epigenetic patterns would be the same, said Deneen, professor and Dr. Russell J. and Marian K. Blattner Chair of neurosurgery and the Center for Cancer Neuroscience at Baylor. Deneen also is the corresponding author of the work.

The function of a gene, in this case Sox9, is assumed to be the same regardless of the cell type in which the gene is expressed. We found something unexpected in that Sox9 function was dramatically different in these two different tumors.

The researchers manipulated Sox9 expression in the mouse models and found that increasing Sox9 suppressed tumor growth in HGG but promoted it in EPN. Surprisingly, Sox9 regulated the epigenetic patterns of HGG and EPN in different ways. In HGG, Sox9 mediated its effect by interacting with a group of proteins called histone deacetylation complex, while in EPN Sox9 interacted with oncofusion proteins. Sox9 has different protein-protein interactions in different tumors.

This is what is really driving the different ways Sox9 regulates epigenetic patterns in these tumors, Sardar said. Its actions are tumor-specific and we essentially took advantage of state-of-the art proteomic technologies to uncover these distinct mechanisms.

Importantly, we also see these distinct Sox9 protein-protein interactions in human HGG tumor samples graciously provided by Dr. Ganesh Rao, Marc J. Shapiro professor and chair of neurosurgery at Baylor, Chen said. Also, our collaboration with Dr. Stephen Mack at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital was crucial for comparing epigenetic datasets of our mouse models with clinical tumor samples from human patients.

This revealed a strong overlap between epigenetic profiles in our mouse models and human tumors, establishing these mouse models as powerful tools to understand clinically relevant tumor behaviors. These findings suggest new possibilities for developing novel therapies directed at epigenetic mechanisms.

Looking to read all the details of this work? Find it in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Other contributors to this work include Amanda Reyes, Srinidhi Varadharajan, Antrix Jain, Carrie Mohila, Rachel Curry, Brittney Lozzi, Kavitha Rajendran, Alexis Cervantes, Kwanha Yu, Ali Jalali and Ganesh Rao. The authors are affiliated with one or more of the following institutions: Baylor College of Medicine, Center for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at Baylor, Center for Cancer Neuroscience at Baylor, St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, University of Houston and Texas Childrens Hospital.

Financial support for this project was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01-NS071153 to BD, R01-NS124093, R01NS094615, K08-NS110976, 1R01NS116361, 1K99-DC019668, P30 CA125123, S10OD026804), National Cancer Institute-Cancer Therapeutic Discovery (U01-CA217842) and the Diana Helis Henry and Adrienne Helis Malvin Medical Research Foundation. Further support was provided by an ALSF A Award, a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research Award, CPRIT Core Facility Award (RP210227), Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, V Scholar Foundation and ALSAC St Jude Childrens Research Hospital.

By Ana Mara Rodrguez, Ph.D.

Originally posted here:
Unanticipated findings cast new light on the genetic regulation of different brain tumors - Baylor College of Medicine

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Artificial Intelligence in Personalized Medicine, Genomic Sequencing Advances, Human Brain Organogenesis, Building Trust with Patients, Guiding…

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:57 am

CHICAGO, July 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- At the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo, laboratory medicine experts will present the cutting-edge research and technology that is revolutionizing clinical testing and patient care. From July 24-28 in Chicago, the meeting's 250-plus sessions will deliver insights on a broad range of timely healthcare topics. Highlights include discussions exploring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in personalized medicine, advances in multiplexed genomic sequencing and imaging, real-life applications of human brain organogenesis, how to build trust with patients, and guiding clinical decisions with mass spectrometry.

(PRNewsfoto/AACC)

AI in Personalized Medicine. Precision medicine involves tailoring treatments to individual patients and, increasingly, clinicians are using AI in their clinical prediction models to do this. In the meeting's opening keynote, Dr. Lucila Ohno-Machado, health associate dean of informatics and technology at the University of California San Diego, will introduce how AI models are developed, tested, and validated as well as performance measures that may help clinicians select these models for routine use.

Multiplexed Genomic Sequencing and Imaging. Thanks to advances in multiplexed genomic sequencing and imaging, we can identify small but crucial differences in DNA, RNA, proteins, and more. These techniques have also undergone a 50-million-fold reduction in cost and comparable improvements in quality since they first emerged. In spite of this, healthcare is just beginning to catch up with the implications of these technologies. Dr. George Church, AACC's 2022 Wallace H. Coulter Lectureship Awardee and founding core faculty and lead at the Synthetic Biology Wyss Institute at Harvard University, will discuss advances and implications of multiplex technologies at this plenary session.

Applications of Human Brain Organoid Technology. The human brain is a very complex biological system and is susceptible to several neurological and neurodegenerative disorders that affect millions of people worldwide. In this plenary session, Dr. Alysson R. Muotri, professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, will explore the concept of human brain organogenesis, or how to recreate the human brain in a dish. Several applications of this technology in neurological care will be discussed.

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Building Trust in Healthcare. The world is having a trust crisis that is affecting healthcare delivery across the globe. Dr. Thomas Lee, chief medical officer of Press Ganey Associates and professor of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will describe the importance of building trust among patients and healthcare workers in this plenary session. He will explore a three-component model for building trust, and the types of interventions most likely to be effective.

Guiding Clinical Decisions with Mass Spectrometry. In this, the meeting's closing keynote, Dr. Livia Schiavinato Eberlin, associate professor of surgery and director of translational and innovations research at Baylor College of Medicine, will discuss the development and application of direct mass spectrometry techniques used in clinical microbiology labs, clinical pathology labs, and the operating room. The presentation will focus on results obtained in ongoing clinical studies employing two direct mass spectrometry techniques, desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry imaging and the MasSpec Pen technology.

Additionally, at the Clinical Lab Expo, more than 750 exhibitors will display innovative technologies that are just coming to market in every clinical lab discipline.

"Laboratory medicine's capacity to adapt to changing healthcare circumstances and use the field's scientific insights to improve quality of life is unparalleled. This capacity is constantly growing, with cutting-edge diagnostic technologies emerging every day in areas as diverse as mass spectrometry, artificial intelligence, genomic sequencing, and neurology," said AACC CEO Mark J. Golden. "The 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting will shine a light on the pioneers in laboratory medicine who are mobilizing these new advances to enhance patient care."

Session Information

AACC Annual Scientific Meeting registration is free for members of the media. Reporters can register online here: https://www.xpressreg.net/register/aacc0722/media/landing.asp

AI in Personalized Medicine

Session 11001 Biomedical Informatics Strategies to Enhance Individualized Predictive ModelsSunday, July 245-6:30 p.m.U.S. Central Time

Multiplexed Genomic Sequencing and Imaging

Session 12001 Multiplexed and Exponentially Improving TechnologiesMonday, July 258:45 10:15 a.m.U.S. Central Time

Applications of Human Brain Organoid Technology

Session 13001 Applications of Human Brain Organoid TechnologyTuesday, July 268:45 10:15 a.m.U.S. Central Time

Building Trust in Healthcare

Session 14001 Building Trust in a Time of TurmoilWednesday, July 278:45 10:15 a.m.U.S. Central Time

Guiding Clinical Decisions with Mass Spectrometry

Session 15001 Guiding Clinical Decisions with Molecular Information provided by Direct Mass Spectrometry TechnologiesThursday, July 288:45 10:15 a.m.U.S. Central Time

All sessions will take place in Room S100 of the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.

About the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab ExpoThe AACC Annual Scientific Meeting offers 5 days packed with opportunities to learn about exciting science from July 24-28. Plenary sessions will explore artificial intelligence-based clinical prediction models, advances in multiplex technologies, human brain organogenesis, building trust between the public and healthcare experts, and direct mass spectrometry techniques.

At the AACC Clinical Lab Expo, more than 750 exhibitors will fill the show floor of the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago with displays of the latest diagnostic technology, including but not limited to COVID-19 testing, artificial intelligence, mobile health, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, point-of-care, and automation.

About AACCDedicated to achieving better health through laboratory medicine, AACC brings together more than 70,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and business leaders from around the world focused on clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, translational medicine, lab management, and other areas of progressing laboratory science. Since 1948, AACC has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing programs that advance scientific collaboration, knowledge, expertise, and innovation. For more information, visit http://www.aacc.org.

Christine DeLongAACCSenior Manager, Communications & PR(p) 202.835.8722cdelong@aacc.org

Molly PolenAACCSenior Director, Communications & PR(p) 202.420.7612(c) 703.598.0472mpolen@aacc.org

Cision

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Faculty Positions in Life Science and Medicine at National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan) job with National Tsing Hua University | 37287332 – The…

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:57 am

Faculty Positions in Life Science and Medicine at

National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan)

Location

Hsinchu, Taiwan

DeadlinePlease check the following link for information.

Position description and other specified information

Required Qualifications:PhD in related fields.

Application:All applicants are required to submit aCurriculum Vitae and othersupporting materials.

About NTHU (Please find more in company)

At National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to explore and realize their unique potential. In everything we do, NTHU will continue to uphold our core values of inclusivity, equality, and inclusivity in safeguarding academic freedom and shared governance.NTHU is widely recognized as a foremost incubator of future leaders in industry and academia. NTHUs consistent record of excellence is exemplified by the outstanding achievement of our faculty and alumni, among whom are two Nobel laureates in physics, one Nobel laureate in chemistry, and one Wolf Prize winner in mathematics.

Salary

1.Statutory Salary:

The statutory salary for a full-time facultymember includes Base SalaryandAdditional Academic Research Pay.

(Please refer to https://yushan.site.nthu.edu.tw/p/412-1518-17613.php?Lang=en)

2. Non-statutory (Additional) Salary:

(1) Yushan Fellows and Yushan Young Fellows: If approved by the Ministry of Education as a Yushan Scholar or Yushan Young Scholar, theMOE willprovide the subsidyfor the non-statutory (additional) salary:

(Please refer tohttps://yushan.moe.gov.tw/TopTalent/EN/Intro)

(2) Flexible Salary Reward: If not approved by the MOE Yushan Fellow Program, NTHU may provide a Flexible Salary Reward if it conforms to the regulations of the NTHU Newly-Recruited Faculties Flexible Salary Reward.

(Please refer to https://yushan.site.nthu.edu.tw/p/412-1518-18110.php?Lang=en)

(3) Newly appointed foreigner (non-Taiwanese) faculty members are eligible to apply for an extra compensation of 25,000 NTD/month till 2027.

Taiwan is ranked 19th in global purchasing power parity (PPP) indicating high standard of living with stable and low cost of living.

(Please refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)#cite_note-:0-1)

We also provide

1. Subsidy for NTHU Newly-Recruited Faculty Academic Research (start-up subsidy)

2. Subsidy for Guest House and Accommodation

3. Education of children

About College of Life Science(https://cls.site.nthu.edu.tw/app/index.php?Lang=en)

Established in 1991 as the very first Department of Life Science in Taiwan, the Department of Life Science allows students to explore various areas of life science in an integrated yet diverse program built upon a solid foundation of chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology. In 2022, the College of Life Science was reorganized and is now comprised of the Department of Life Science, the Department of Medical Science, the Interdisciplinary Program of Life Science, the School of Medicine and five Institutes, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, the Institute of Bioinformatics and Structural Biology, the Institute of Molecular Medicine, the Institute of Biotechnology, and Institute of Systems Neuroscience. The Department of Life Science, Medical Science and Interdisciplinary Program offer undergraduateBachelor of Science(B.Sc.) programs in Biology and Medical Science whereas the five Institutes offer graduate programs in a variety of research areas. The School of Medicine offers Doctor of Medicine.

Five educational goals of the College of Life Science (ERIGS):

1. Education: Excellence in education and learning in the fields of life science

2. Research: Innovative research and research training at the highest international level in the fields of life science

3. Internal Mobilization: Supporting the development of students and colleagues

4. Globalization: Widening global worldview and providing international environment for the studies of life science

5. Social Responsibility: Model for sharing common wealth from life science research

We strive to train our young life scientists as prophetic leaders of future generations with a passion for science, and compassion for life and a desire to transform the world.

Chronology

1973 Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) established

1974 Masters program for IMB established

1984 Ph.D. program for IMB established

1985 Re-organized as Institute of Life Science

1987 Life Science Building I completed

1991 Institute of Biomedicine and Department of Life Science established

1992 College of Life Science established

1995 All institutes merged into Department of Life Science

1997 Institute of Biotechnology established

1998 Institute of Radiation Biology merged with the College

2002 Reorganized into four institutes and Department of Life Science

2004 Brain Research Center established

2008 Interdisciplinary Program of Life Science and Institute of Systems Neuroscience established

2010 Department of Medical Science established

2013 Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Ph.D. Degree Program established

2016 Ph.D. Program in Bioindustrial Technology established

2022 School of Medicine established

2022 Reorganized into five institutes, three departments and one interdisciplinary program

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Faculty Positions in Life Science and Medicine at National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan) job with National Tsing Hua University | 37287332 - The...

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Molecular Diagnostics Developer INEX Innovate Announces Funding for New Research with The Chinese University of Hong Kong – PR Newswire APAC – PR…

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:57 am

Singapore-based diagnostics developer INEX Innovate brings The Chinese University of Hong Kong together to further research work on LEXI, INEX's fetal cell based non-invasive pre-natal diagnostics technology.

SINGAPORE, July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Singapore-based diagnostics developer and medical laboratory operator, INEX Innovate has contributed an undisclosed sum to leading Hong Kong university The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), to collaborate and further research in the field of maternal fetal medicine.

INEX's Dr. Chia-Pin Chang with Prof. Richard Choy of The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The CUHK Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (O&G) is world-renowned for its many prominent contributions and high-impact publications in the scientific community, attributed to its pursuit towards advancing the frontiers of knowledge in O&G through clinical, scientific and translational research. This initiative will tap on the research expertise of CUHK to further advance LEXI, a novel fetal cell isolation technology developed by INEX Innovate.

LEXI is a Non Invasive Prenatal Diagnostic (NIPD) technology that isolates fetal cells from the unborn baby, contained in the pregnant mother's blood for the definitive analysis of in excess of 7000 potential rare fetal genetic conditions.

Currently, expectant mothers whose prenatal screening results show signs of fetal anomaly are often recommended to undergo prenatal diagnostic tests for a definitive diagnosis of fetal genetic abnormalities, as this allows for early medical treatment of these conditions. However, prevailing diagnostic procedures such as amniocentesis are invasive and carry a risk of pregnancy loss of up to approximately 5 per cent[1].

Developed by INEX's Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Chia-Pin Chang, The LEXI cell isolation and enrichment is a process that isolates, identifies, and extracts target cells such as fetal cells from blood samples. The LEXI microfluidic chip enables its microfabricated filter to successfully deplete most of non-target cells in a blood sample and effectively capture fetal cells. Clinicians will need to draw one tube of blood from an expectant mother to generate results of the health condition of the fetus.

Chief Executive of INEX Innovate, Kane Black remarked, "We're thrilled to support and further the research of LEXI withProfessor Richard Choy and his team at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the pioneer centre of scientific excellence that focus on translating research advances into clinical impact both locally and internationally.

Mr. Black further commented fetalcellsinmaternalbloodrepresentthe Holy Grail of prenatal diagnosis. The major challenge has been isolation of these cell from maternal blood owing to their rarity, we look forward to working on this potentially cutting edge medical breakthrough with CUHK."

"We are looking forward to developing a potentially important breakthrough technology in the field of maternal fetal medicine," said Prof. Choy, Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

[1] Cynthia L. Anderson, MD, and Charles E. L. Brown, MD, MBA, "Fetal Chromosomal Abnormalities: Antenatal Screening and Diagnosis, American Family Physician, 2009 Jan 15;79(2):117-123.

About INEX Innovate:

INEX Innovate is one of Asia's fastest growing molecular diagnostics developers and medical laboratory operators.

Founded by veteran maternalfoetalmedicine specialists, INEX is uniquely positioned to identify and address clinically unmet needs within the fetal health and women'soncology landscape, with a broad commercial portfolio of validated tests and 48 key patents.

Through our wholly owned subsidiary iGene Laboratory Pte Ltd, INEX operates a state of the art Next Generation Sequencing Laboratory that provides diagnostic testing, clinical research (CRO) and COVID-19 testing services.

The company has been recognised globally with a number of accolades and awards including from Frost & Sullivan, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), The Straits Times Singapore's Fastest Growing Companies and the Financial Times ranking of 500 of Asia Pacific's Fastest Growing Companies.

For more information please visit: http://www.inex.sg

About The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK):

Founded in 1963, CUHK is a leading comprehensive research university with a global reputation. Located in the heart of Asia, CUHK has a vision and a mission to combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West. Under the University's unique collegiate system, the programmes and activities offered by its nine colleges complement the formal curricula by delivering whole-person education and pastoral care. The University has eight faculties: Arts, Business Administration, Education, Engineering, Law, Medicine, Science, and Social Science. Together with the Graduate School, the University offers over 300 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. All faculties are actively engaged in research in a wide range of disciplines, with an array of research institutes and research centres specialising in interdisciplinary research of the highest quality.

The University currently has more than 1,400 granted patents in different jurisdictions worldwide. Some of these patents have been licensed to relevant industries that help bring these innovations to the market to benefit society. In academic year 2020-21, CUHK has received 226 granted patents and filed 386 patent applications for inventions developed in the areas of medical technology, biotechnology, information technology, telecommunications, and materials science.

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Biologists train AI to generate medicines and vaccines – UW Medicine Newsroom

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:57 am

Scientists have developed artificial intelligence software that can create proteins that may be useful as vaccines, cancer treatments, or even tools for pulling carbon pollution out of the air.

This research, reported today in the journal Science, was led by the University of Washington School of Medicine and Harvard University. The article is titled"Scaffolding protein functional sites using deep learning."

The proteins we find in nature are amazing molecules, but designed proteins can do so much more, said senior author David Baker, an HHMI Investigator and professor of biochemistry at UW Medicine. In this work, we show that machine learning can be used to design proteins with a wide variety of functions.

For decades, scientists have used computers to try to engineer proteins. Some proteins, such as antibodies and synthetic binding proteins, have been adapted into medicines to combat COVID-19. Others, such as enzymes, aid in industrial manufacturing. But a single protein molecule often contains thousands of bonded atoms; even with specialized scientific software, they are difficult to study and engineer.

Inspired by how machine learning algorithms can generate stories or even images from prompts, the team set out to build similar software for designing new proteins. The idea is the same: neural networks can be trained to see patterns in data. Once trained, you can give it a prompt and see if it can generate an elegant solution. Often the results are compelling or even beautiful, said lead author Joseph Watson, a postdoctoral scholar at UW Medicine.

The team trained multiple neural networks using information from the Protein Data Bank, which is a public repository of hundreds of thousands of protein structures from across all kingdoms of life. The neural networks that resulted have surprised even the scientists who created them.

The team developed two approaches for designing proteins with new functions. The first, dubbed hallucination is akin to DALL-E or other generative A.I. tools that produce new output based on simple prompts. The second, dubbed inpainting, is analogous to the autocomplete feature found in modern search bars and email clients.

Most people can come up with new images of cats or write a paragraph from a prompt if asked, but with protein design, the human brain cannot do what computers now can, said lead author Jue Wang, a postdoctoral scholar at UW Medicine. Humans just cannot imagine what the solution might look like, but we have set up machines that do.

To explain how the neural networks hallucinate a new protein, the team compares it to how it might write a book: You start with a random assortment of words total gibberish. Then you impose a requirement such as that in the opening paragraph, it needs to be a dark and stormy night. Then the computer will change the words one at a time and ask itself Does this make my story make more sense? If it does, it keeps the changes until a complete story is written, explains Wang.

Both books and proteins can be understood as long sequences of letters. In the case of proteins, each letter corresponds to a chemical building block called an amino acid. Beginning with a random chain of amino acids, the software mutates the sequence over and over until a final sequence that encodes the desired function is generated. These final amino acid sequences encode proteins that can then be manufactured and studied in the laboratory.

The team also showed that neural networks can fill in missing pieces of a protein structure in only a few seconds. Such software could aid in the development of new medicines.

With autocomplete, or Protein Inpainting, we start with the key features we want to see in a new protein, then let the software come up with the rest. Those features can be known binding motifs or even enzyme active sites, explains Watson.

Laboratory testing revealed that many proteins generated through hallucination and inpainting functioned as intended. This included novel proteins that can bind metals as well as those that bind the anti-cancer receptor PD-1.

The new neural networks can generate several different kinds of proteins in as little as one second. Some include potential vaccines for the deadly respiratory syncytial virus,orRSV.

All vaccines work by presenting a piece of a pathogen to the immune system. Scientists often know which piece would work best, but creating a vaccine that achieves a desired molecular shape can be challenging. Using the new neural networks, the team prompted a computer to create new proteins that included the necessary pathogen fragment as part of their final structure. The software was free to create any supporting structures around the key fragment, yielding several potential vaccines with diverse molecular shapes.

When tested in the lab, the team found that known antibodies against RSV stuck to three of their hallucinated proteins. This confirms that the new proteins adopted their intended shapes and suggests they may be viable vaccine candidates that could prompt the body to generate its own highly specific antibodies. Additional testing, including in animals, is still needed.

I started working on the vaccine stuff just as a way to test our new methods, but in the middle of working on the project, my two-year-old son got infected by RSV and spent an evening in the ER to have his lungs cleared. It made me realize that even the test problems we were working on were actually quite meaningful, said Wang.

These are very powerful new approaches, but there is still much room for improvement, said Baker, who was a recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Designing high activity enzymes, for example, is still very challenging. But every month our methods just keep getting better! Deep learning transformed protein structure prediction in the past two years, we are now in the midst of a similar transformation of protein design.

This project was led by Jue Wang, Doug Tischer, and Joseph L. Watson, who are postdoctoral scholars at UW Medicine, as well as Sidney Lisanza and David Juergens, who are graduate students at UW Medicine. Senior authors include Sergey Ovchinnikov, a John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellow at Harvard University, and David Baker, professor of biochemistry at UW Medicine.

Compute resources for this work were donated by Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

Funding was provided by the Audacious Project at the Institute for Protein Design; Microsoft; Eric and Wendy Schmidt by recommendation of the Schmidt Futures; the DARPA Synergistic Discovery and Design project (HR001117S0003 contract FA8750-17-C-0219); the DARPA Harnessing Enzymatic Activity for Lifesaving Remedies project (HR001120S0052 contract HR0011-21-2-0012); the Washington Research Foundation; the Open Philanthropy Project Improving Protein Design Fund; Amgen; the Human Frontier Science Program Cross Disciplinary Fellowship (LT000395/2020-C) and EMBO Non-Stipendiary Fellowship (ALTF 1047-2019); the EMBO Fellowship (ALTF 191-2021); the European Molecular Biology Organization (ALTF 139-2018); the la Caixa Foundation; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (HHSN272201700059C), the National Institutes ofHealth (DP5OD026389); the National Science Foundation (MCB 2032259); the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institute on Aging (5U19AG065156); the National Cancer Institute (R01CA240339); the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Swiss National Center of Competence for Molecular Systems Engineering; the Swiss National Center of Competence in Chemical Biology; and the European Research Council(716058).

Written by Ian Haydon, UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design

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UCSD Post-COVID Lung Disease Study May Unlock Path to Therapies – Times of San Diego

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:57 am

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (pink) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (UK B.1.1.7; gold), isolated from a patient sample. Courtesy NIAID

UC San Diego researchers have found that a post-COVID lung disease shares origins with other scarring lung diseases, which may offer a path to effective therapies, according to a study released Wednesday.

Although most people recover relatively quickly from COVID-19, around one-third of survivors experience symptoms weeks and months after the initial infection. However, in the study published in Wednesdays online issue of eBioMedicine, UCSD scientists studied interstitial lung disease, a form of long COVID that consists of a group of chronic pulmonary disorders characterized by inflammation and scarring of the lung.

The researchers said little is currently known about ILD which can be fatal without a lung transplant in its most severe form. But they found insights into the causes and paths the disease may take.

Using an artificial intelligence approach, we found that lung fibrosis caused by COVID-19 resembles idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the most common and the deadliest form of ILD, said co-senior study author Dr. Pradipta Ghosh, professor in the departments of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UCSD School of Medicine. At a fundamental level, both conditions display similar gene expression patterns in the lungs and blood, and dysfunctional processes within alveolar type II cells.

Those AT2 cells play several roles in pulmonary function, including the production of lung surfactant that keeps lung cells from collapsing after exhalation and regeneration of lung cells after injury.

The findings are insightful because AT2 cells are known to contain an elegant quality control network that responds to stress, internal or external, Ghosh said. Failure of quality control leads to broader organ dysfunction and, in this case, fibrotic remodeling of the lung.

To conduct the study, Ghosh collaborated with co-author Debashis Sahoo, associate professor in the departments of Computer Science, Engineering and Pediatrics at UCSD for the AI assisted analysis among other aspects.

Ghosh and Sahoo said the approach would help them stay unbiased in navigating the unknowns of an emerging, post-pandemic disease. They analyzed more than 1,000 human lung datasets associated with various lung conditions, specifically looking for gene expression patterns, inflammation signaling and cellular changes. The disease with the closest match: IPF.

IPF affects around 100,000 people in the United States, with 30,000 to 40,000 new cases annually. The condition has a poor prognosis, with an estimated mean survival of 2 to 5 years from time of diagnosis.

City News Service contributed to this article.

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UCSD Post-COVID Lung Disease Study May Unlock Path to Therapies - Times of San Diego

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Here’s What We Know About COVID Vaccine Plans for the Fall – CNET

Posted: July 27, 2022 at 2:57 am

As the latest COVID-19 vaccine, Novavax, jumps the final regulatory hurdle onto the US market, the US Food and Drug Administration has its eyes set on the COVID-19 vaccine plan for this fall and winter, when we're likely to see another wave of cases.

The FDA last month made arecommendationthat vaccine manufacturers should make a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine that targets the omicron variant -- specifically, theBA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. BA.5, the most contagious version of the virus to date, now makes upthe majorityof COVID-19 cases in the US and seemslikely to leadto another summer surge of COVID-19 cases ahead of the anticipated fall or winter booster rollout.

The current advice for this summer is the same: Get the booster shots you're eligible for. (For everyone 50 and older, that means two boosters.) But the question at hand for health regulators was whether vaccine-makers should continue to use their original primary vaccine formulas (which will probably stay the same for the time being) for boosters, or if they should create a vaccine that targets omicron, which has been dominant worldwide for months and keeps mutating into more-contagious versions of itself.

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While there's still the chance we could be dealing with a whole new variant come fall or winter (you can never underestimate COVID-19), the FDA decided boosters targeting BA.5 should be the way forward.

The US government is expected to roll out vaccine boosters based on need: People most at risk will be eligible for a new booster first. And the vaccines based on earlier strains of the virus that causes COVID-19 (also called "ancestral" strains) are still protective against severe disease and death from omicron -- the most important function of vaccination in general.

While the details are being tested and ironed out, here's what we know about the fall COVID-19 vaccine strategy.

Both BA.4 and BA.5 are considered part of the "original" omicron variant (BA.1) family. They're newer versions of the virus that causes COVID-19. BA.5 quickly overtook the conversation on BA.4/BA.5 because of its extreme contagiousness, and it's now the dominant variant in the US. In a late June post, Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine, called BA.5 "the worst version of the virus that we've seen."

While more time and research is needed to see what effect they have in the US (which has already experienced a high number of cases this late spring and summer), BA.5 is thought to whittle away much of the infection protection people got prior sickness, even with other omicron variants.

Omicron caused such a huge number of cases last winter because it was the most contagious variant to date, evading some infection protection from prior illness and effectiveness of the vaccines. The fact that newer versions of omicron are proving to be even more contagious isn't a big surprise, as this is the path COVID-19 has taken over the last two and half years.

Read more abouteverything we know about BA.5.

Specifically, the FDA is asking for abivalent(two-component) vaccine booster, which will include the BA.4/BA.5 spike protein in addition to an older strain. The FDA doesn't make vaccines, so the agency will likely authorize individual vaccine types as companies create and test them, as it did for the original COVID-19 vaccines and booster doses.

The vaccines currently authorized or approved only use older or "ancestral" strains of the virus. These vaccines still provide good protection against severe disease and death, but the effectiveness against infection is becoming more limited as the virus keeps mutating.

At a White House COVID-19 Response Teambriefing Tuesday, Dr. Ashish Jha said that if the timeline goes accordingly, he expects the first people to be eligible will start getting vaccinated in October, with other people becoming eligible in November or December.

But there is no authorized booster yet, so an exact timeline isn't available right now.

Moderna and Pfizer had both been working on boosters that target the general omicron variant. With the FDA's request to target omicron's newest strains, they will need to switch lanes to meet their target, hopefully in time for fall.

Novavax which justreceived CDC recommendationfor its primary two-dose vaccine also said it'sspeeding up workon a formula specifically targeting the new versions of omicron.

Pfizer announced last month that it struck a deal with the US government to provide more doses including ones that are adapted for omicron, pending FDA authorization.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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Here's What We Know About COVID Vaccine Plans for the Fall - CNET

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Monthly Archives: July 2022

There Is No Such Thing As A Lightning Wallet – Bitcoin Magazine

Dean Kamen on the power of celebrating your own obsoletion – TechCrunch

Westin and Sehn Carve Out the Role of CAR T-Cell Therapy and Transplant in Primary Refractory DLBCL – OncLive

Unanticipated findings cast new light on the genetic regulation of different brain tumors – Baylor College of Medicine

Artificial Intelligence in Personalized Medicine, Genomic Sequencing Advances, Human Brain Organogenesis, Building Trust with Patients, Guiding…

Faculty Positions in Life Science and Medicine at National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan) job with National Tsing Hua University | 37287332 – The…

Molecular Diagnostics Developer INEX Innovate Announces Funding for New Research with The Chinese University of Hong Kong – PR Newswire APAC – PR…

Biologists train AI to generate medicines and vaccines – UW Medicine Newsroom

UCSD Post-COVID Lung Disease Study May Unlock Path to Therapies – Times of San Diego

Here’s What We Know About COVID Vaccine Plans for the Fall – CNET

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