OK, looks like Democracy is safe for now, and the push for reform is making headway. There's a long road ahead, but I'll take a brief timeout to report from @NYASciences's #Phenotypic2020 virtual conference.
First keynote was @OlgaTroyanskaya, presenting a range of tools for understanding #NonCoding genomic variants: DeepSEA, ExPecto, Fenrir...
Emphasizes that #ComplexDisease relies on networks and complex changes like #Aging, so we have to stop looking for 1->1 causal maps. Agree!
Andrea Califano from @columbiacancer using combination of #HTS and #SingleCell Plate-Seq to look for cancer master regulators. VIPER identifies proteins whose regulatory effect impacts genes that distinguish cell states. Now running phase 1 trial!
@TraverHart on philosophy of #CRISPR.
Joking aside: finds "missing hits" in knockout screens where paralogues exist, co-essentiality within and across pathways. "Easy to screen, hard to analyze". Calls for more #Polygenic screens to understand disease biology. #Phenotypic2020
Missed a few, now @betastarfish presenting diligent MOA studies for compounds preventing beta cell death and ones increasing insulin secretion. I didn't realize that 25-50% of diabetes cases are undiagnosed!
"Very few drugs actually target beta cells, the root of the problem"
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I'm struggling to wrap my head around the new Weissman lab myHSC depletion paper:
The first authors don't seem to be on twitter but hoping I can crowdsource a fun discussion. @dbgoodman @ImmunoFever @Jeff_Mold @Satpathology @CalebLareau...nature.com/articles/s4158…
The premise of the paper is that immune function declines with age in part because a haematopoetic stem cell (HSC) population skewed towards myeloid lineage increases in prevalence, and that targeting this population with antibodies can restore function. Cool idea!
❓1⃣: How well defined are myHSCs?
Here myHSC seems to be defined as CD150 high, based mainly on Beerman 2010 .
But looking at Figure 3, CD150 expression is a continuous distribution. Is this a clear cell population with somewhat understood behavior? pnas.org/doi/full/10.10…
If you want to build a career in biotech, should you get a PhD after college or join a company directly (as a Research Associate/RA, usually)?
There's no single answer, but I have the conversation often enough that I thought I'd share some pros/cons... (1/n)
First, see this thread about different types of biopharma companies. For reasons I'll get into, I think early stage (probably founder led) biotech is your best bet unless you still want to do PhD later.
(PS if you want to be a professor, it's 💯 PhD) 2/n
PhD will give you more options.
Some companies (incl. @GordianBio) will help you grow from RA to Scientist role (and beyond). But many, esp larger, companies have a glass ceiling if you don't have a PhD. Even if you pick one w/o glass ceiling, you'll be worse off it if fails. 3/n
All these points resonate, for early stage biotech at least. @erlichya touches on this, but I think worth separating "industry" into different clusters that will feel quite different to someone coming from academia (still oversimplified, of course):
Pharma (eg Pfizer) vs biotech:
You wear fewer hats, see less of the company but company as a whole spans wider range of expertise, fewer changes in direction, often higher income but no chance of getting rich. Both have job insecurity: pharma doesn't go die but programs do.
Clinical vs R&D stage biotech:
Clinical may still have R&D but it's no longer the biggest driver of success vs failure. Assay validation/rigor > assay development/invention. Clinical can feel more like pharma, but with more urgency/stakes: one program = life or death of co.
#SciTwitter After a lot of research and asking around, I'm making the lab equipment recommendations 🧵 I wish I'd had 2 months ago. RT/share with a #newPI or startup 🔬⚗️🛒
Note, much of the equipment hasn't arrived yet, will add comments after actual use.
-20 #freezer
Less clear, many viable options. We ended up getting a split of PHC MDF -30 (recommended as quieter) and much cheaper Corepoint Scientific/@VWR, will see which we prefer. Thermo hasn't failed #MBCbiolabs, but $$$ and several people said poor customer support.
As with all experiments, I expect that some of these will disappear and that others will be a central part of science in ten years.
But them happening at all is enough to renew a conversation about how science is funded and conducted.
🦸🏽 While I've been doing most of the tweeting, the Longevity Apprentices @LNuzhna@kush__sharma@edmarferreira & Tara Mei are the real heroes for running the operations.
This has been a great Apprenticeship project, merging action and exposure to research martinborchjensen.com/apprenticeship
🚅 The review + awards process was fairly smooth, thanks in part to @kush__sharma's custom reviewer UI. Several reviewers told us unprompted that it was their best review experience ever; the UI took 2 wks to make, so there's low hanging fruit for other agencies in that area.