Wednesday, October 17, 2018

FRED HUTCH NEWSLETTER


I still can't figure out where this is.
Any suggestions?

The Fred Hutch Newsletter is out.  It contains a half-dozen interesting articles, ranging from Immunotherapy to Circadian Rhythms.  You could do worse than to spend a few minutes reading it.  Here it is:


I particularly appreciated the piece on ovarian cancer, partly because I know, or at least have met, almost everyone mentioned.   I even have blogged about one of them:


Much of this article is about a “two-minute” questionnaire designed to determine whether or not one is suffering from OVCA.  It is the product of work by Dr. Robyn Andersen, a clinical psychologist.  Back in the day I proof-read several of Robyn’s papers.  Her questionnaire is given in the article.  Make sure your primary care doc knows about it.  Don't apply it to yourself and then obsess about it, though.

Another interesting (to me, at least) article examines some of the mysterious nuts and bolts of CAR-T immunotherapy.  I learned that in making the T-cell a “chimera” they festoon it with molecules that are stuck in and penetrate the cell wall.  The outer end of these things is the “antigen receptor”; it recognizes, and gloms onto, the cancer cell.  When this happens, the inner end activates “pathways” that turn the T-cell into a lethal weapon.  How all this happens, or how they even know it happens is not explained.  Just as well.

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