> marrying CROs to investigators and vice versa would be super helpful.
Can you explain this idea in more detail? Many CROs are already establishing preferred-provider relationships with investigators.
354 karma · joined June 18, 2012
Can you explain this idea in more detail? Many CROs are already establishing preferred-provider relationships with investigators.
Doing experiments on animals (and especially humans or other vertebrates) is the exact opposite of something you can just go ahead and do. The best way to see that is to give it a go yourself.
> At the very least, we could just reverse engineer biology.
Many people in the past with a CS/physics mindset have made similar claims. If you try to work with living systems, I'm sure you'll see why these problems aren't just a matter of spending R&D dollars.
If they are so "easily approachable," feel free to solve them any time. I think you'll find that solving problems in living systems (let alone in the clinic) is much more challenging than it might appear from a CS/physics perspective (https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Andy-Grove-fallacy?share=1).
I'm not saying it's not worth trying (it's certainly a more worthwhile endeavor than getting people to click on more ads), but that it's important to be realistic (for example, that all disease is unlikely to be cured by 2100).
Summary
1. Lack of rigidity, excessive stickiness of molecules (Van der Waals force), constant random interactions (Brownian motion) at the microscale of cells means mechanistic intuitions from the macroscale don't apply.
2. High surface area (combined with VdW force) causes problems related to friction and energy dissipation.
Check out PubPeer: https://pubpeer.com/
Having had experience with syn bio in grad school and trying to reconcile the empirical (biology) and first principles (CS/math) approaches, I've been thinking a lot lately about how to streamline the troubleshooting process for picking up and optimizing wet lab methods. I'd love to chat - my email's in my profile.
And a more easily comprehensible summary of it: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/01/08/tei...
The most interesting part of this is how the compound was discovered:
> A multichannel device, the iChip, was used to simultaneously isolate and grow uncultured bacteria. A sample of soil is diluted so that approximately one bacterial cell is delivered to a given channel, after which the device is covered with two semi-permeable membranes and placed back in the soil. Diffusion of nutrients and growth factors through the chambers enables growth of uncultured bacteria in their natural environment. The growth recovery by this method approaches 50%, as compared to 1% of cells from soil that will grow on a nutrient Petri dish.
The iChip was originally described in an April 2010 paper (http://aem.asm.org/content/76/8/2445.long), and builds on earlier work from 2002 (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/296/5570/1127), along with advances in microfluidics.
The late 80s were definitely a different time, though - the amount of money needed for the RJR LBO is much more easily accessible to people in similar positions in 2016. As of June 30th, KKR's AUM is $131B, while Blackstone is at $356B.
Another good read on PE is King of Capital (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307886026).
If you're interested in learning the technical details of corporate finance, you're probably best off starting with something like the Coursera class Introduction to Corporate Finance (https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-finance), and then reading the textbooks referenced by the course for a more in-depth understanding.
> Merck’s move follows a major trend in biopharma R&D, as the biggest companies concentrate more and more of their work in the big hubs. And virtually all of the major players have downsized at one time or another.
> Close to three years ago, Merck triggered a major reorganization in its R&D ranks, as the then new R&D chief Roger Perlmutter set in motion a plan that involved 8,500 layoffs, all of which were piled on a restructuring effort that was announced earlier.
> Those layoffs followed a years-long gap in significant new drug approvals and a string of clinical setbacks. Since then, though, Merck landed a landmark approval of Keytruda, now the number two checkpoint inhibitor on the blockbuster cancer market, along with an OK early this year for its hep C combo, Zepatier, which is being sold in a rival-infested field.
That reminds me of this challenge Heroku is currently facing (http://go.theinformation.com/884b08):
> When an app hits a certain scale, the cost of Heroku can be many times that the cost of cutting out the middlemen and running on AWS directly.
> For that reason, Heroku finds it tough to attract big companies. They know they’re going to operate at a large scale, and they’re open to taking the trouble to cut out the middleman of a Heroku if the savings are great enough.
Infighting Slows Apple’s Cloud Engineering Efforts: http://go.theinformation.com/2c8e01
> Two engineering teams working on new internal cloud-computing infrastructure to power Apple’s Web services are in open conflict, the people say. Already, the infighting has sparked at least one key employee departure, with more expected soon.
Inside Apple’s Cloud Infrastructure Troubles: http://go.theinformation.com/d716c4
> Despite years of trying, Apple has failed to develop infrastructure to handle traffic for its Internet services, which include iTunes, Apple Maps, iMessage and backups of images and videos stored on the iPhone.
How Facebook Squashed Twitter: https://stratechery.com/2016/how-facebook-squashed-twitter/
The Reality of Missing Out: https://stratechery.com/2016/the-reality-of-missing-out/
I'd say LinkedIn actually has stronger network effects than Facebook, or other consumer social networks. Consumer social networks are used more casually, so it's easier to get users to sign up than it would be for a professional social network, where users tend to adopt a more conservative mindset. And we've seen several consumer social networks rise in the post-Facebook era - Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/is-10-too-old-to-be-in-tech...
https://lifescivc.com/category/from-the-trenches/ (the posts here aren't included on the main page)
> Bond and Richards-Kortum found that averaging the results of the droplet tests could produce results that were on par with venous blood tests, but tests on six to nine drops blood were needed to achieve consistent results.
If/when human-level AGI becomes reality, the economic impacts will be the least of anyone's concerns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence:_Paths,_Dang...