This is mind blowing: > For the first half of the twentieth century, the going theory was that the invading element—the “antigen”—served as a template around which a corresponding antibody was molded. Only in 1955 did scientists discover the much stranger truth. It turned out that the cells that produce antibodies—called B cells, because they were first discovered in the bursa of Fabricius, an organ that does for bir…
extremely naive, dumb questeion: could cancer cells stem from some errant mutation of B cells? this might help explain why cancer cells grow uncontrollably and also escape detection by the immune system.
How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
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Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#62This is mind blowing: > For the first half of the twentieth century, the going theory was that the invading element—the “antigen”—served as a template around which a corresponding antibody was molded. Only in 1955 did scientists discover the much stranger truth. It turned out that the cells that produce antibodies—called B cells, because they were first discovered in the bursa of Fabricius, an organ that does for bir…
extremely naive, dumb questeion: could cancer cells stem from some errant mutation of B cells? this might help explain why cancer cells grow uncontrollably and also escape detection by the immune system.
> could cancer cells stem from some errant mutation of B cells?
That is exactly how lymphomas originate.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#63This is mind blowing: > For the first half of the twentieth century, the going theory was that the invading element—the “antigen”—served as a template around which a corresponding antibody was molded. Only in 1955 did scientists discover the much stranger truth. It turned out that the cells that produce antibodies—called B cells, because they were first discovered in the bursa of Fabricius, an organ that does for bir…
extremely naive, dumb questeion: could cancer cells stem from some errant mutation of B cells? this might help explain why cancer cells grow uncontrollably and also escape detection by the immune system.
B cells carry the same DNA as all other cells. The difference between cell types is in what sections are functionally expressed (made into proteins that do their work). This is determined by a multitude of factors.
Cancer cells typically have mutations, even just single base pair changes, which change the way that genes are expressed in the cell and thereby influence such behavior.
The original functions of the B cell aren't necessarily needed for other cell types to exhibit similar functions. The base plan is there, it just needs a nudge.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#64Another related mechanism is antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE)[1], where suboptimal antibodies bind to the virus and cell receptors, promoting the former's entry into the latter. It has been proposed that ADE increases the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infections[2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#65It would be interesting to see a heat map for reading an article like this. It’s so long.. after 10 minutes I wanted to know the point of it, so I skipped aggressively to the middle, found a few points, then skipped to the end. I wonder if there’s any value to so many words in this day and age with so many other things to read on the internet.
Every time a New Yorker article shows up, people crawl out of the woodwork to complain that it's a New Yorker article . If New Yorker articles are not for you, then do not try to read New Yorker articles. Really! Read other things you will actually like. If you want a quick rundown of the topic, Wikipedia is only a click away , and gets right to the point. Those of us who like New Yorker articles appreciate them when…
When you post an article, what sort of discussion are you hoping people will hold?
If you are hoping that people will discuss the novel aspects of the coronavirus's impact on the immune system then you might choose an article that focuses on that.
Instead, if you choose an article that spends a large amount of time discussing tangential points, creating lengthy analogies for the workings of the immune system and discussing other forms of immune response then probably you are hoping people will discuss those too.
But people will appreciate as well as criticise. That there are people who appreciate the analogies are apparent in the discussion here where people do just that. That there are people who would prefer a focused article and find that the tangents detract from the underlying store is just the flip side of that discussion that the op decided to have.
I personally wish that long form journalist articles would have an outline at the beginning so that I know what I am about to read. Otherwise it often just feels like the author is rambling and going nowhere. Some stories actually have a lot of moving parts and require long form journalism to paint a realistic and balanced picture. Instead, a lot of "long form" journalism just adds filler analogies and tangential factoids that may be interesting but often don't add anything to the underlying story or are unnecessary for understanding.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is 'Long Form Journalism'. The 'dip in, dip out' paragraph structure is a dead giveaway. Not always what you're looking for but it can be a good way of cracking into a subject you're unfamiliar with, or a good way of merging the human element with something that would otherwise be quite dry. By no means a substitute for regular news, but a good complement to it.
The problem is not the long form per se, but its misuse. Since usually journalists try to implant human interest stories etc where they don't fit. Long form is good if you have something long to say. Trying to construct a story where there isn't one frustrates the reader. I enjoy in depth exposes, but I don't need the alice, bob and malory viewpoint anchoring. This is my general attitude towards this style of writing…
Related to unnecessary words inside a newspaper/magazine article, this interview [1] with Georges Simenon is the best example of why those articles look like crap (at least for people like me, I do realize that there are other people with different tastes):
> Just one piece of general advice from a writer has been very useful to me. It was from Colette. I was writing short stories for Le Matin, and Colette was literary editor at that time. I remember I gave her two short stories and she returned them and I tried again and tried again. Finally she said, “Look, it is too literary, always too literary.” So I followed her advice. It’s what I do when I write, the main job when I rewrite
> I: What do you cut out, certain kinds of words?
> Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence—cut it. Every time I find such a thing in one of my novels it is to be cut.
[1] https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5020/the-art-of-fi...
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's cool, but realistically how else could it do it?
There are already examples of alternatives, like it could have some kind of brain and communication apparatus to work with others of its species and put together things like GPU simulations of protein modeling to generate optimized artificial antibodies.
How are you going to run a GPU sim on a bunch of meat?
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is 'Long Form Journalism'. The 'dip in, dip out' paragraph structure is a dead giveaway. Not always what you're looking for but it can be a good way of cracking into a subject you're unfamiliar with, or a good way of merging the human element with something that would otherwise be quite dry. By no means a substitute for regular news, but a good complement to it.
> it can be a good way of cracking into a subject You mean it can be a good way of stretching an article to fit more ads and increase monetization.
I don't disagree but national geographic, time, and now the same formats transposed into the online world all have their place. They can act as fantastic springboards into underlying news, scientific research, and other further reading in a way that's similar to but far more engaging than a dry wikipedia article.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s mind blowing not only how our body mimics natural selection with B cells, but also how it generates the genetically diverse B cells in the first place. [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V(D)J_recombination "V(D)J recombination"
Yes, and if you have different versions of the HLA gene, you get different distributions as a result of V(D)J recombination. So, in a way, different individuals have different immune strategies. For example, super-responders to HIV tend to be HLA-B57. This HLA "version" trades better response to virus that mutate quickly for more chances of autoimmunity as thymic selection is less stringent (because HLA-B57 presents…
Woah. Thanks for sharing that. I did not know that. What a fine balance!
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#70This is mind blowing: > For the first half of the twentieth century, the going theory was that the invading element—the “antigen”—served as a template around which a corresponding antibody was molded. Only in 1955 did scientists discover the much stranger truth. It turned out that the cells that produce antibodies—called B cells, because they were first discovered in the bursa of Fabricius, an organ that does for bir…
extremely naive, dumb questeion: could cancer cells stem from some errant mutation of B cells? this might help explain why cancer cells grow uncontrollably and also escape detection by the immune system.
Yes! Exactly.