Bits In Bio Newsletter - April 16th 2024
Updates From and Around the Bits in Bio Community and Developments in the Field
Highlights
By popular demand we have brought back the “In Case You Missed It” segment, featured below - thank you Felix for your diligent surveillance of the field!
Were you or someone you know effected by the recent tech layoffs? Check out the Bits In Bio community job board for over 100 open positions across all levels!
We’re are testing out a different format for this newsletter. Tell us what you think with this Three (3!) Question Survey! Thanks to those who filled it out last week!
We’re eager to to grow the ranks of our volunteer horde to help create great content, organize more fantastic events, broaden our inclusion to more people in diverse communities, and create useful programs to support our community.
Not yet a member of our super awesome slack community of >6000? Join HERE 🤗
📢 Community Announcements
New to the Slack? Not sure where to start? Check out some of the top channels on our 6500 person Slack: #ML, #events, #jobs, #startups, and #bioinformatics!
Many folks will be in Boston for the BioIT conference next week, and if you are too, reach out and connect with folks through the #boston and #events channels!
Sign up for the BiB Buddy Program
We are recruiting for our BiB Buddy Program. This is ‘mentor matching’ initiative can help you build connections with others in the community, exchange knowledge & experiences, find potential collaborators/mentors/mentees, and more! We’ll use some info about you & what you hope to get out of the program to match you with one/more buddies, and help facilitate some connections.
Sounds exciting? Fill out this form to indicate your interest! Thank you to all of those who have already signed up.
👀 In Case You Missed it..
First tissue agnostic cancer drug approval (2024/04/11 STAT, and AstraZeneca)
Enhertu is the first cancer drug to be approved as tumor agnostic. This is extremely impactful as it shows a willingness from the FDA to approve cancer drugs based on their mechanisms and molecular targets instead of tissue of origin for the tumor. The previous use of tissue of origin meant that patients with rare tumors would have to wait years to see label extensions of drugs known to work in other tissues, despite the fact that the tumors shared the same drivers. The problem this solves was nicely summarized in this Nature opinion piece a few months ago.
This also calls back to the FDA’s announcement earlier this month about their change in policy for approving neoantigens cancer vaccines, and their thinking about how to regulate algorithmically designed vaccine payloads.
A cancer vaccine revival (2024/04/10 STAT)
Cancer vaccines, a technology used to train your immune system to better recognize and attack tumors, is looking good at the AACR. Although Gritstone Bio’s recent phase two trial did not reach its endpoints, the vaccine from Transgene showed that it reduced relapses in a small trial. Interestingly a scientist they are quoting says that the cancer vaccine may found their best use after surgery to help clean up micro metastases, and reduce the risk of relapse. Cancer vaccines are currently mostly expected to clean up the micro tumors after a surgery, but the goal would be to turn cold tumors (not attacked by the immune system) into hot ones (recognized as a problem by the immune system).
Venture news
Regeneron creates a new $500m venture arm (2024/04/15 Fierce Biotech), and a16z closes a $7200m round (2024/04/15 Axios).
🗓️ Upcoming BiB Events
See our handy dandy Lu.ma event calendar HERE, please RSVP so folks can plan accordingly!
Bits in Bio Happy Hour (with Snowflake) - April 17th, 155 Seaport Blvd, Boston
Thank you for organizing Brandon Revelli and Traci Haddock!
Bits in Bio April Journal Club - Computer Vision - April 17th, online
Thank you for organizing Steve Cheney!
Bits in Bio Tech Showcase - April 25th, location TBD
Thank you for organizing Beko Jang and Shantenu Agrawal
📰 Community Conversations & Shares
@David Wright is looking at on-prem vs cloud compute cluster for his series A newco!
@Jon Tippens is looking for for great podcast recco’s around biotech/genomics!
@Alex Araki Is curious to learn why Cas13 evolved to make nonspecific RNA cuts!
@Felix Raimundo is looking for review and papers on DNA/RNA LLM augmentation!
✍️ Newsletters from Community Members
Decoding Bio; Century of Biology; Asimov Press; Scaling Biotech; Ground Truths; In the Pipeline.
🙋 🙏 Community Asks
Feedback: How is the Newsletter doing? We’re trying different formats/content. In case the hyperlink above didn’t get your attention, maybe a bright orange button will!
🏢 Job Openings
Customer Solutions Engineer at Mendel AI
Microbiology Research Associate at Pioneer Labs
Visit our community job board to see the full list of jobs - over 100 currently up!