<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1252">
</head>
<body>
<p>Marcus - <br>
</p>
<p>It took me a few takes to get the implication/import of your
response... let me reframe:</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><i>This just in from a younger (40) colleague I've known for
decades whose biases and understandings I think I understand
well: </i><i><br>
</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>To add context for why I was puzzled by your response, she did
just have a baby (a year ago) and when CRISPR hit the deck (decade
ago now?) her first whimsical response was to say she wanted to
splice back in the genes for prehensile tails for humans (and she
hadn't even seen Cats on broadway, and long before the bad movie
version where digitally rendered tails were the main star)... <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>So I thought somehow you knew all this and was calling *that*
out. I don't think her son has a tail... or at least they keep it
well tucked when I visit.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Back to playing "whack-a-mole" with the myriad consequences of
this pandemic!</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p> Carry on,</p>
<p> - Steve<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:BY5PR11MB3896E4C1C299105D50FB0487C5F10@BY5PR11MB3896.namprd11.prod.outlook.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1252">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;"> P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} </style>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
Alrighty, let's return attention to those genetically-engineered
babies!<br>
</div>
<hr style="display:inline-block;width:98%" tabindex="-1">
<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt"
face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Friam
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com"><friam-bounces@redfish.com></a> on behalf of Steven A Smith
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com"><sasmyth@swcp.com></a><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, March 24, 2020 12:16 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:friam@redfish.com">friam@redfish.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:friam@redfish.com"><friam@redfish.com></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [FRIAM] Antiviral and Vaccine development and
immune profiling from one of many insiders in the fray..</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div>
<p>FWIW -</p>
<p>This just in from my daughter, molecularBio/Virologist at
OHSU on the topic of antivirals and vaccines and human samples
for immune profiling:<br>
</p>
<blockquote>Also, this concept of targeting the host rather than
the virus for antiviral development is not a new one, has lots
of complications, and is something that people have been
trying to do for years with limited success. However, there
are lots of good virologists on here (many flavivirologists!),
and I do have some hope that something good might come from
it. The press coverage of this work makes me feel a little
uncomfortable--not that he's being opportunistic or dishonest
necessarily but when the University PR office gets involved,
there's almost always some spin/exaggeration. I will say (I
don't know if you've seen the interviews with Nevan) that I am
enjoying his increased fondness for eccentric suit jackets.
<div dir="ltr"> </div>
<div dir="ltr">I spent 4 hours yesterday on conference calls
partly because no one has anything else to do, but also
because everyone's doing their very best to get involved
with Covid research, I think mostly with good intentions.
We will be setting up some vaccine development, which is
extremely unlikely to have any benefit for the current
epidemic (although who knows? the current estimate of how
long we will be fighting this keeps lengthening), and I will
also be filling in in a colleague's lab who is collecting
and banking Covid19+ human samples for immune
profiling--gotta go get fit tested for an N95 mask today.
I'm not particularly worried about it but I have lots of
people worrying for me, so then I wonder if I should be
worried...</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">One interesting thing I heard in the endless
conference calls yesterday was that they have tried an
anti-CCR5 antibody in some compassionate use cases with
enough success that they are going to try in more people.
The hypothesized activity is that it prevents 'cytokine
storm' (basically very high levels of inflammation that are
responsible for most of the damage that happens at the end
stages). The good thing about this approach is that there
are many antibody treatments that would presumably do the
same thing, so there are lots of avenues to explore if this
turns out to really work.</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">I've been relying mostly on TWIV for keeping up
with the current research because there's a ton out there, and
it's good to have someone smart sift through it for me.</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a>
archives back to 2003: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a>
FRIAM-COMIC <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> by Dr. Strangelove
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>