Viewing profile — wdwvt1

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 proces…

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 …

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 popu…

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…

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 c…

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 "infl…

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…

I came here to post this - he was perfect for that role. He and Robert De Niro played off each other so well.

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 th…

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 pape…

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 p…

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…

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 mas…

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 (t…

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.…

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 metabol…

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…

Interface Biosciences | Chemical biologist/microbiologist/computational drug discovery Interface Biosciences is an early stage startup focused on identifying novel anti-inflammator…

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 mo…

Or coprolite - a killer with this set of letters.

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 -…

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…

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 chemi…

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. Thi…

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 …