wdwvt1

8 ms·

1.
by wdwvt1 1y ago
There are so many interesting metabolites that the gut microbiome produces that modulate the immune system. My former startup (Interface Biosciences) was trying to develop a process for identifying and developing these as traditional pharma
2.
by wdwvt1 2y ago
Just wanted to add some color to this good comment. In the human context we are much closer to being able to culture anything we want. I would estimate that we are at 75% coverage now -- pick a species detected genomically in the human gut
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by wdwvt1 2y ago
The comments on this article take for granted that agricultural use of antibiotics is a key driver of the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This is an intuitive and popular explanation, but the magnitude of this effect is not wel
4.
by wdwvt1 2y ago
Very cool! This kind of material is potentially very interesting for biotech/lab automation tasks. Any info on surviving sterilization techniques (autoclave, ethylene oxide, clydox, etc)?
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by wdwvt1 2y ago
The direct role that university research plays in drug development is overstated. The majority of cost and difficulty in pharma is _drug development_ not _drug discovery_. Pharma can do the discovery and the development, academics can only
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by wdwvt1 2y ago
Inflammation is an extremely broad term which covers an extremely wide range of chemical responses in the body. You should be _extremely_ skeptical of anything that discusses "inflammation" as a single thing or even an easily unde
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by wdwvt1 2y ago
This post analogizes between a specific theory of human intelligence and a badly caricatured theory of evolution. It feels like better versions of the arguments for Darwin Machines exist that would not: a) require an unsupportable neuron-ce
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by wdwvt1 2y ago
I came here to post this - he was perfect for that role. He and Robert De Niro played off each other so well.
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by wdwvt1 3y ago
I think the author's mental model of what makes particulates dangerous is odd. In part 1 of the post he mentions the molecular size of PFAs, and in part 2 he mentions benzene. I think "size" is not the relevant property - it&
10.
by wdwvt1 3y ago
Microbiome researcher here. As usual, when a microbiome paper reaches HN, I emerge to urge caution. You should be extremely skeptical of the larger conclusions drawn from this paper. The biology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is poorly un
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by wdwvt1 3y ago
I am a drug developer working on identifying novel therapeutics from human skin, oral, and intestinal bacteria. I love the idea of Manifund - but I think this may not be the best project for it. This proposal needs some review by a biologis
12.
by wdwvt1 3y ago
I love the spirit of this grant but it has big "programmer knows better then pharma" vibes. At a first glance: 1) The original strain (BCS3-L1) is a clinically derived isolate with who knows what properties. Why not just take the
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by wdwvt1 4y ago
If you are looking for an in depth (pop-sci) dive into the mass extinctions in earth's history definitely check out "The Ends of the World" by Peter Brannen. It covers the five mass extinctions with a good mix of scientific d
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by wdwvt1 4y ago
Somewhat self-interested plug here: consider working in metabolomics as well. Metabolomics is where sequencing was in ~2008. The physics and chemistry are pretty well worked out (though many improvements are surely coming in the same way th
15.
by wdwvt1 4y ago
Microbiome researcher here - I feel like this is the time I get to shine in HN threads. The Segal and Elinav labs are powerhouses in computational and gnotobiotic microbiome study. They've published several highly cited papers around i
16.
by wdwvt1 4y ago
Very cool! Are you a wrapper for Metabolon - e.g. are they doing the untargeted work or do you all have your own LCMS farm? If you ever get interested in adding a microbial metabolites angle to this drop me a line.
17.
by wdwvt1 4y ago
Microbiome researcher here. Like many microbiome results - this paper has tantalizing evidence of a powerful and systemic effect, but extremely limited direct evidence. The primary experiment in the paper is the transfer of stool contents f
18.
by wdwvt1 5y ago
Interface Biosciences | Chemical biologist/microbiologist/computational drug discovery Interface Biosciences is an early stage startup focused on identifying novel anti-inflammatory molecules produced by commensal gut and skin mic
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
This seems like a really interesting work in terms of synthesizing and systematizing the known reactions/fluxes in a minimal cell. However, the paper seems to be like many other modeling studies in the field of microbiology - there are
20.
by wdwvt1 5y ago
Or coprolite - a killer with this set of letters.
21.
by wdwvt1 5y ago
I don't have much knowledge on supplements or even diet - beyond it's intersection with the microbiome. From the microbial perspective I think traditional dietary stuff is enough - eat fibrous plants and legumes and that's al
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
Fascinating question - also not totally known. We know that microbes colonize the gut in a somewhat predictable way as a function of age. As a newborn your gut is largely dominated by Bifidobacteria, and this slowly transitions to a more co
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
Absolutely - the chemicals that microbes make in the gut pass into your blood stream and from there access the entire body. There are mechanisms the body uses to ensure these chemicals are detoxified (phase I and phase II metabolism in the
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
I think it's really hard - we don't know what a healthy state of the microbiome is. There is likely a lot of individuality, what is healthy for me is maybe not healthy for you. This probably has to do with early life immune system
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
Fascinating question - and not one whose answer is known. Fiber is good for microbes merely by the virtue that humans lack the glycan-degrading enzymes that are necessary to break it down, so it reaches the colon intact where the microbes c
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
I think you hit it on the head - the C. diff stuff is good and will meet FDA criteria soon (the phase III data from ECOSPOR was good: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03183128 ). In general we only have m
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
There are a variety of strategies being pursued to make pharmaceutical products out of microbiome research. Broadly those are: 1: "bugs as drugs" - genetically engineered microbes that perform some function. The idea here is that
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
Gut microbiome researcher here - not involved in this study but happy to answer questions or dig in with anyone interested!
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
It seems like the manipulations were exceedingly silly. It seems like having the sophont start a nuclear war would be straightforward. It was hard for me to suspend disbelief in the sense that it had planet-sized computational power and the
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by wdwvt1 5y ago
Totally agree with this, the effort to retard development could have been better spent with a myriad of ecosystem destroying actions or geopolitical manipulations. Also just send the indestructible probe to kill every human... My bigger pro

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