Particle Therapy Puns

This is very exciting stuff. The relevant interview starts at 25 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfODWr0Nq7g

I transcribed the important part for anyone that might find a written version more accessible: (Also quick disclaimer - the medications may be misspelled.)

“We identified an immune signature - the fingerprint of long covid. Using a statistical model and artificial intelligence, with a 97% sensitivity and 100% specificity, we examine the long-haul index where we could now classify someone using this algorithm, based on elevated cytokines and other patterns.

We now have a diagnostic tool to measure response to therapy.

But where’s the inflammation coming from?

We started finding coded proteins in a subset of macrophages in the long haulers. Viral particles persisting in those immune cells. The full pathogenesis will be laid out in Dr Patterson’s next manuscript.

Our treatment is precision medicine where we’re measuring the cytokines on these patients and we’re targeting specific therapies - there’s no one drug that’s going to resolve these issues. It’s the combination, and understanding the patterns and knowing where you are in the disease. We are using ivermectin. We use Luvox. We’re using another drug, an HIV medication the ccr5 inhibitor called Maravarak, along with a couple of other medications.

So everyone gets a different medication protocol based on what their immunology is showing.

And here’s the really exciting thing. We’ve got about over 3,000 patients in our database. We’ve started treating several hundred patients, and in about 2 or 3 weeks, a lot of them are getting better. How do we know they’re getting better? Because their bloodwork is now showing it. We have what they were before, we know what they are after - why they’re feeling better.

And now we’re starting to introduce more lab work where we can now go and detect - if you say you feel better, and your long-haul index shows you’re no longer a long hauler - we can now go into your bloodwork and see if you still have the covid proteins. We can now confirm if we put the fire out - that you’ve completely recovered and you’re not going to relapse.”

Paper will be officially published in 2 weeks. Pre-print can be found on https://covidlonghaulers.com

Pre-print: https://covidlonghaulers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Immune-Based-Prediction-of-COVID-19-severity-and-Chronicity-Decoded-Using-Machine-Learning-12-22-2020.pdf

Interview with Dr. Patterson - this websi

Been hearing about that company popping up more and more, was wondering if anyone here is in an institute that might be working with them?

Hi everyone,

I am coming to the end of my PhD and am interested in continuing on in research. I have been interested in particle therapy (mainly protons, but really anything heavier than electrons) for a number of years, and I am currently searching for post-doc positions in this research area.

Can you guys help me with identifying some of the top/most well-known/active particle therapy research groups/institutes around the world? A list like this will greatly help me focus my search and find potential supervisors to get in touch with. Here's a preliminary list (I'll update this with your suggestions):

• Francis H. Burr Proton Beam Therapy Center, Massachusetts General Hospital (USA)
• MD Anderson Cancer Center (USA)
• Center for Proton Therapy, Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland)
• Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center (Germany)
• EDIT: Abramson Cancer Center (USA)
• EDIT: Mayo Clinic (USA)
• EDIT: National Institute of Radiological Sciences (Japan)
• EDIT: Christie NHS Foundation Trust (UK)
• EDIT: Loma Linda Cancer Center (USA)

Thanks in advance for any help!

-R

Hi Reddit,

Thanks for all your kind words and especially a few who went above and beyond to listen to my stories and questions.

Little background, mom has HCC (liver cancer). Our doctors in Vancouver, Canada is not offering anything else but Sorafenib. While mom is still considering it, she would like to see if there are any other options.

One thing we have been considering for a while is Particle Therapy. We are from Korea, and we read that a lot of people go to either Germany or Japan. So we were looking at third party services that provide a full ride (examinations, consultation, treatment, aftercare, etc.). While I cannot get an exact number, it seems like those services are very expensive; the treatment itself is very pricey as well.

Since we can speak English, we were thinking about just doing it ourselves without hiring anyone. However, mom found that Canadians also travel to Germany to get these kinds of treatment. So we were wondering if there is any third party services like they offer in Korea where they would help with making arrangements, etc. I also read on articles that many are "referred" to other hospitals in Germany - is there a special referral that doctors can do? Or are they just talking about "Oh, try this this hospital"?

If anyone has ANY experience with these kinds of treatment, please let us know.

I'm getting help from a counselor, we worked out that I was pre-judging myself even before going into a situation. So, for example, I feel awkward when I make eye contact. In those situations I assume that people don't like to make eye contact; I assume I make them uncomfortable. I make up all these assumptions about the other person and act as if those assumptions were real. I think, for example, about the number of times I've done it--is it too much, too little, should I look now, etc. I then think about the social implications of eye contact. At another instance, I force myself not to make eye contact at all. This is why I can't focus on the task at hand or remember what we are talking about. All this crap, all this, because I'm the one reprimanding myself for staring at people, for looking at people. I'm sure this will be familiar to many of you reading.

So my counselor and I came up with this. My counselor basically told me to go out into the world and let myself look, let myself do what I think is "staring" at people. Let myself be myself and look for however long I want. The real boundary will be set by the other person, she said. This way I know the real limit of eye contact, the limit that the real world sets on eye contact. So what's happening when I stare at people, since I don't know the real limit, my mind has to make up it's own limit. Since I'm guessing at the limit I never find it, because I'm using my imagination to find an answer that others without SA find in the real world through their real social interactions. I don't know the limits of eye contact because I've never allowed myself to go the real socially acceptable limit of eye contact in social interactions. In allowing myself to make eye contact with the other person for however long I want, I'm being conscious of the fact that what I'm doing is trying to establish a true limit of eye contact for myself.

The real problem with most therapies, and that of CBT included, is that they want us to change our minds by repeating thoughts. Exposure therapy suffers from this same defect. In fact, they reinforce the type of thinking I describe in the first paragraph because they never offer a real solution out of the world of ideas. Exposure therapy for example, asks us to go out into the real world and expose ourselves to the world to "get over our fears." These therapies do not know the real task at hand: allowing the world to react and replace our ideation with verifiable objective lim

I'm a chemistry graduate student wanting to learn more about the use of virus-like particles (VLPs) in gene therapy, or virology in general.

As far as I know, viral vectors such as AAV and retroviruses are the most frequently used technique for gene therapy. I have also read some recently published articles on VLPs, which are gaining popularity in gene therapy.

My main question is, how are VLPs different than viral vectors such as AAV and retroviruses?

Based on my knowledge:

• VLPs are produced by expressing coat proteins, which self-assemble into VLPs. Viral vectors are expressed as a whole virion particles.

• VLPs do not carry the viral genome; viral vectors carry the viral genome. (Doesn't the viral genome get replaced by the gene of interest before entering the cells?)

Hopefully my lingo wasn't too far off. Thanks!

The full video for the 60 minutes segment can be found here: http://www.erieblogs.com/2009/10/19/watch-the-john-kanzius-piece-from-60-minutes

If you go look through the literature for publication from the investigators mentioned (and involved in the Kanzius research foundation), - http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.org/research/published_research_manuscripts/ - you'd hardly find a handful of articles. Even though the research articles are positive (like this, look down at Conclusions section) - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21138869 - there's not a rush of research directed at this treatment.

Likewise, the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation (which tries to fund this research developed by Kanzius) doesn't seem like it's getting nearly the attention or money it deserves. If you look at its Newsreel, you wouldn't think it had one of the most innovative/safest/promising therapy treatments - http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.org/news/ It made winning a mere $250k Pepsi Cool Idea grant (back in April of last year) out to be a huge deal. For a therapy treatment like this, which has had positive outcomes in the lab - millions of dollars should be coming in to try and fund this. And although I'm not intimately familiar with clinical trials, I would think that because it has not shown to cause much harm compared to other cancer treatments and has really great efficacy, the trials could be sped up.

Anyone know what's with the lack of attention?

Edit: added link

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Some of you might remember my story...

In November of last year my partner and I miscarried. It was traumatic. I was extremely stressed being pregnant during the pandemic and having my family try to force social interactions while simultaneously denying covid and not takin precautions. In fact, when we announced our pregnancy, it turned into a huge fight and because we had asked them to wear a mask when we saw them. It's been downhill since then.

In April of this year we were scheduled for our ultrasound for the next pregnancy. During my apt, I tried to contact my husband because he couldn't attend (covid restrictions) and I couldn't get through. My Q family were bombarding him in person and on the phone , screaming, crying, and calling him and I "baby killers" for getting the covid vaccine while pregnant. I hadn't even decided to get it at that point, I was merely going to my ultrasound appointment to see that this baby in fact was alive. Among other things they said, they said we would absolutely regret it when we inevitable killed our baby when I was vac'd and we would become infertile.

Months passed, low/no contact, and lot's of guilt trips on their end when there was. There's a lot more to include here but honestly, it doesn't matter. In Nov we had a very healthy baby boy. It was a relief because even though we focused on the science of the vaccine and used multiple medical pro's in our decision, that stupid little voice of my mother always sat in the back of my head calling me a baby killer. (Yes, I am in therapy if you're wondering). We decided to limit all health information going forward from them including vaccination status obviously.

In Sept, my mom and I had a huge blow out because she was going to attend a huge funeral when covid #'s were skyrocketing and she still wanted to see my daughter and attend my birth. Mother's in my area that were covid + were being forced into early c-sections with premie babies and some mothers dying. It was NOT worth the risk to me. We had some words and she cried that I was "brainwashed"!!! I screamed back that I in-fact was vaccinated fully, and my baby was indeed healthy and alive despite our "impure" blood.

So yes, she missed the birth of my baby. He's 3 weeks old and despite living next to us, she's seen him for 5 minutes. Same with my brother. It's because they hate wearing masks and our boundaries with covid safety.

Fast forward to today. I've been keeping the door open (why?) for our relation

I’m have some psychological (identity, anxiety, depression) issues that drastically prevent me from living a normal life. It lead me to watch videos of teachers like Eckhart Tolle, GP Walsh, Rupert Spira because normal therapy always seemed to miss the mark. Apparently there is nondual therapy but its costs a lot. I’d be willing to skip a meal for a session or two but im jobless and live with my parents.

Do your worst!

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Because she wanted to see the task manager.