[HN Gopher] Diagnosing cancer by profiling the immune system
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       Diagnosing cancer by profiling the immune system
        
       Author : jostmey
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2023-04-20 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | jjtheblunt wrote:
       | This was a plot twist in an episode of CSI:Miami several years
       | ago.
       | 
       | Identical twins were implicated in a crime for which DNA was left
       | behind, and they thought they were safe by being twins. But they
       | also had distinct T cell (etc) signatures and that solved the
       | case.
        
       | ajb wrote:
       | Getting a readout of the immune system sounds like a huge
       | advance. I'm a little surprised to first hear about it as a
       | cancer diagnosis tool rather than as an autoimmune disease
       | diagnosis tool
        
         | nextos wrote:
         | I've been working on this area for quite long, and I think it's
         | just a matter of time it becomes huge. Right now, a major
         | roadblock is that paired RNA-seq, which also gives paired TCR
         | alpha and beta chain data, is too expensive compared to bulk
         | TCR-seq. The latter has limited resolution and more technical
         | noise.
         | 
         | However, Microsoft Research has a preprint that employs bulk
         | TCR-seq where they are able to detect Lyme, which was
         | particularly difficult using antibody assays and often mistaken
         | for multiple sclerosis:
         | https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.30.21261353v...
         | 
         | AFAIK, there are a few startups in stealth mode and non-stealth
         | mode collecting big repertoire datasets. In those datasets, one
         | can even measure the effects of vaccinations that occurred
         | decades ago.
        
         | jostmey wrote:
         | Trying to raise money for something like that!
        
       | penny11k wrote:
       | Regarding cancer treatment, wonder how much more advancement did
       | they get on that polio treatment. Where lot of test subjects with
       | a brain tumor was treated by injecting polio virus into them.
       | 
       | https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2020/01/clinical-t...
        
       | rosywoozlechan wrote:
       | All the really interesting stuff is always written in python,
       | (AI, science research stuff like this). Here I am and I haven't
       | written any python in over 10 years now, ever since go overtook
       | python after it's v3 debacle.
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-20 23:00 UTC)