Can someone more knowledgeable on the subject please clarify if this proposed therapy requires personalization for each patient or if it can be (eventually) mass produced? Thanks!
There are two kinds of personalization in a [CAR] [T] therapy:
1) using the patient's own cells [personalization of T Cells]
2) customized therapeutic genetic payload, per patient [personalization of the CAR]
There are current competing factions for #1 - where cells are from just the patient ["Autologous"] (safer, slower, more expensive), and where the cells are from a universal donor ["Allogeneic"] (possible immune response, but can be manufactured at scale).
The therapeutic payload is a DNA sequence encoding a synthetic chimeric receptor ["CAR"]. This sequence is customized based on the details of the patient's particular cancer, but are common across many people. If the cancer has an excess of "Protein X" on it, then the CAR sequence is designed to target Protein X. All patients with a similar cancer profile receive the same CAR sequence as a payload to the T cells. This too could be personalized, to not just profile the _class_ of cancer, but particular to that _specific patent's cancer's profile_ - but this is not yet feasible given the turnaround time to build, test and evaluate a new genetic payload in the context of a person's specific tumor cells.
This particular therapy has the cells be from the patient (personalized), but the CAR sequence provided to the cells is common for all people that have the same cancer profile (semi-personalized). In this case, the cancer profile includes those that have an abundance of the protein called Claudin-6.
"... 10 aerial color images taken April 19 during Ingenuity’s Flight 26" - I am more excited by the fact Ingenuity continues to operate and has so far collected unique imagery and telemetry on 26 flights!
Sorry, but being an engineer is different than knowing your way around "code and stuff". Being an engineer is also different than being a computer scientist or programmer. The authors studied arts and mathematics, but that didn't stop them from starting the post by making it look like its written by engineers:
"Early in our careers as engineers, we’re told to invest in technical skills."
"A popular YouTuber filmed himself driving a wind-powered vehicle downwind faster than the wind itself. [...] Muller, the creator of the Veritasium YouTube channel, likes to break down funky science concepts for his 9.5 million subscribers."
The "popular YouTuber" is Derek Muller, who studied Engineering Physics and has a PhD in Physics Education Research... It's so frustrating to see how the writer tried so hard to make as much as clickbait-y title as possible...
Having 9.5 million subscribers on a science-based YouTube channel is definitely more notable than having gone to university, or indeed having a PhD. I think the writer picked the correct description here.
I see your point, but the title and first paragraphs try to paint the picture of a "funky science" youtuber betting a UCLA physicist $10k and winning (which for me is very different to the truth: UCLA physicist bets another physicist $10k and loses)
He did study Physics but his main field is science education, I think it's fair to assume a physics professor would know a bit more. I also think it's a bit of your own preconceived notion at play here assuming that calling someone a "Youtuber" is meant as a negative. This is equivalent to saying "Science communicator vs physics professor", which is a fair portrayal.
I really don't think being called a Youtuber is meant as negative. I take issue with how the writer chose to present this story. If this was about the intricacies of ad revenue on YouTube for example, great, no need to specify he also has a physics degree. But I'm disappointed to see them paint him as just a guy who "likes to break down funky science" (and made 10k off a physicist) when he is more than that, with relevance to the actual story. For someone who doesn't know his work, he might as well be one of the guys burning snow with lighters a few months ago to prove its fake snow...
It's a sad indictment of the times when people feel that having a million subscribers (read: being popular) is more notable than having a PhD (read: expert training) in a relevant field.
It's no wonder anti-vaccine material is so widespread. Someone famous on Youtube said it was bad, it must be true!
Subscribers do so for a reason. In this case not insignificantly because of expert training.
I'd suggest that very few YouTubers are popular because they are popular, in fact I think this is fairly rare in general. I think it's more likely that they provide some value to their audiences. I think looking down on "celebrity culture" often fails to account for the types of value that one doesn't value themselves.
Re the first statement, that’s complete horseshit. Celebrity culture is all about being part of a cult following and finding like-minded people. Any correlation to objective fact or basis in reality is purely coincidental, and has no bearing on the quality of the person or the content of the movement being followed.
I totally get that you value Gig Hadid’s opinion on wardrobe whereas I don’t, nor do I judge, to each his/her own. But, to claim that her opinion is more accurate/better/truthful to that of a respected fashion designer or industry expert is inherently flawed. Wearing clothes is not the same as designing them.
That’s a false dichotomy. Being a president is tangentially related to exceptional intelligence.
A better example would be Brian May (of Queen). No correlation between academic credentials and artistic career. There, if the article were about black holes and May had an opinion, I would expect the reporter to cite his PhD, making it a (potentially) informed opinion.
The people who have top YouTube channels also have exceptional intelligence. Maybe less so in logical intelligence or rote memorization, but more so in other intelligences.
> A better example would be Brian May (of Queen). No correlation between academic credentials and artistic career
I am not sure why that example is better -- Muller's academic credentials are very well related to his career. As were Wilson's.
I still don't see how our individual actions can have a widespread impact regarding climate change, sure, it will have some effect, but I'm willing to bet it would add up to fractions in the end. Pushing political and economic leaders to take action by tackling just the top mega polluters on the other hand seems like it would have significant impact https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1
Is this "winter is coming", "the end is near" tone helpful? I'm not necessarily saying it's outright false, but look, there've been past times where the end truly felt near, but we managed to overcome it... Again, we might not this time, but why should we bet against us? Does anyone want to be the lone survivor in the post-apocalypse? Sorry if overreacting.
No need to be sorry. It's really depressing, obviously I hope I'm actually wrong.
I find it useful because we might, in fact, overcome this, but for now we seem to be on track for 3+C of warming within my kids' lifetimes, wet bulb temperatures making a decent chunk of the Earth uninhabitable (even naked healthy people will die sitting in the shade), the loss of the majority of insects we need for pollination, sea level rise giving us millions of homeless people, wars breaking out over access to resources, increasing ocean acidity and anoxia threatening sea life, accelerating self-reinforcing carbon emissions (hotter weather melting permafrost releasing methane making weather hotter, ice sheets melting reducing albedo making Earth warmer and melting more ice) etc. and all of those put together don't make me optimistic.
Unfortunately the problem with "we managed to overcome it" is that everyone who didn't manage to overcome is not around to comment. I certainly aim to be someone who "manages to overcome it" but that won't happen by being ignorant of the dangers we face and failing to adjust my life in ways that maximize the probability of this.
I don't think you'd be the lone survivor in the post-apocalypse, short of going full Venus the planet will sustain _some_ life, including humans, hopefully. Where there are groups of people, or most other mammals I'd venture. there is at least the possibility of joy.
IPCC working group 1 is putting out a draft report Monday, let's see what they say.
"... and actually drives everyone to compete in how much they can contribute" - because this is what we all need, competing everyday for making someone else more money.
Also, this model seems to work reallly well for you: none of the top navigation buttons on your site work for me (using Chrome beta)
This is an entirely voluntary option. Someone like patio11 advocates it all the time. (It was partly inspired by his writings.) It was supposed to address the arbitrage that the middlemen take when they rent out your skills to effect real change, while they stick you in a “steady” paycheck situation and give you bundled health insurance.
You want to be underpaid in a full time job and pretend to work 8 hours a day, while your time is billed out at 3x by a consulting company? Have at it. Or you can think about how much value you are bringing to the business and get a cut of that value. No one at Qbix is FORCED to accept such an arrangement. However, people have chosen to do it voluntarily, and it is a way to be properly compensated fairly for just how much you helped grow the software company’s bottom line.
Imagine, as a developer or designer, coming across a SaaS company whose product you are very familiar with, that openly publishes its metrics. They honestly reveal that some metrics could use improvement, and you have a great idea for how to do it. You get in touch and – instead of hiring you to for some full-time position doing mostly drudge work inside the company – they agree to pay you for your contribution, if it works out. $1,000,000 / year x (C–1) for every factor C that you improve a certain KPI metric.
PS: Those aren’t buttons, they are menus, you’re supposed to use the dropdown.
"compensated fairly for just how much you helped grow the software company’s bottom line" - as others have said: what do you do with all the stuff below the waterline, that DON'T grow the bottom line? Bugfixing, reliability, privacy, security, etc.
PS: Thanks, knew that, the dropdown buttons didn't work. And they still don't.
We pay for it as any company does — internally. All contributions go through the same process. Just the initiatives that can raise our bottom line get tested and compensated proportionally if that’s what the submitter chooses!
