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Mike Barnkob

@mikebarnkob.bsky.social

M.D, PhD with a day job as a clinical immunologist, but moonlights as a CAR-T researcher. Interested in: synbio, cancer & cellular therapies.

264 Followers  |  361 Following  |  30 Posts  |  Joined: 20.11.2024  |  2.3797

Latest posts by mikebarnkob.bsky.social on Bluesky

It’s definitely true that preexisting immunity affects transmissibility; but I think the virus adapted for increased transmission in humans as well, eg the D614G mutation and increased binding to ACE receptor found in some variants. Really I think you to look at protein level, not the variant name

22.06.2025 06:30 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

In Denmark they are still offered in 2 and 3 trimester as fare as I can read

28.05.2025 11:40 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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BAFF-R and CD21 dysregulation inhibits memory B cell persistence in patients with common variable immunodeficiency Background Individuals with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) are at increased risk of respiratory infections such as SARS-CoV-2 infection due to poorly understood defects within the memory B ce...

Patients with CVID are at increased risk following infection with virus, due to poor B cell function.

The pandemic allowed us to examine how CVID patients reacted to a novel antigen.

Here we characterized B cell function. across multiple immunization events.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

28.05.2025 11:38 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Question is whether previous infections / vaccinations decreases this risk today. I am not saying I would risk it, but I am not sure the risk today is the same as in 2022 as most people have had multiple immunization events at this point

28.05.2025 05:32 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Wait what, so the universe a gigantic cell or what is going on here?

25.04.2025 21:26 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Skin damage signals mediate allergic sensitization to spatially unlinked antigen Skin injury releases damage-encoded systemic signals that can initiate immunity to novel antigens introduced at distal barrier sites.

#LocationLocationLocation! Wang Eisenstein Waizman @yaleschoolofmed.bsky.social &co show @ Science Immunology that physical, chemical, & radiation skin damage induces IL33 activating ILC2 & transferring to distal barrier tissues the capacity to induce antibodies causing #allergic responses!

04.04.2025 20:06 β€” πŸ‘ 16    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks - and thanks for all the work you put into these posts πŸ˜€

04.04.2025 16:40 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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The recombinant shingles vaccine is associated with lower risk of dementia - Nature Medicine A natural experiment including more than 200,000 people who received a shingles vaccine reveals that, within 6 years of vaccination, the recombinant vaccine is associated with lower risk of dementia t...

Here’s a nice study looking at that exactly: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

04.04.2025 16:35 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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The recombinant shingles vaccine is associated with lower risk of dementia - Nature Medicine A natural experiment including more than 200,000 people who received a shingles vaccine reveals that, within 6 years of vaccination, the recombinant vaccine is associated with lower risk of dementia t...

It does indeed look like Shingrix have a similar effect: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

04.04.2025 16:33 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 5
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Herpes Zoster Vaccination in SLE: A pilot study of Immunogenicity Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are at increased risk of herpes zoster (HZ). Although a vaccine for HZ has been FDA approved, its use in immunocompromised individuals remains controve...

Additionally, certain types of autoimmunity also seem to react less strongely to the Zostavax vaccine. E.g. SLE patients generate a lesser T cell response (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...). But really there does not seem to be much data around on this? 3/3

03.04.2025 22:11 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

How certain are you that this is actually the case? I am asking because many autoimmune patients are presumably taking drugs that affect a vaccine-response negatively (B-celle depleting drugs, DMARDS, ect). Also, I assume many autoimmune patients are not allowed to use live-vaccines? 2/3

03.04.2025 22:11 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations on a very interesting and important paper. In your discussion concerning the mechanism, you examine VZV-independent effects. You have a section on autoimmunity, which sort of hinges on whether the vaccine elicits the same response in autoimmune patients as healthy individuals. 1/3

03.04.2025 22:11 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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The clinical landscape of CAR NK cells - Experimental Hematology & Oncology Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK cell therapy has emerged as a promising alternative to CAR T cell therapy, offering significant advantages in terms of safety and versatility. Here we explore the cu...

CAR NK cells are being explored as an off-the-shelf cell-therapy. How and against what are they being tested?

Lasse and Emil from our group did a fantastic deep dive into all clinical trials being conducted using CAR NKs. Check out our review: link.springer.com/article/10.1... #CAR #NK #Immunology

03.04.2025 21:03 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

If we’re in the range of say 10.000 other solar systems - and they need to spend a few million year evolving into something that cares / is able to look/send signals, perhaps the numbers don’t stack up so high as Fermi predicted? 2/2

02.04.2025 20:32 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

If we imagine other species have the same tech we currently have: how many solar-systems could realistically have spotted us or received radio-waves from earth? I guess my point is, isn’t the period in which we have made noise/generated a bio-signatur too small for that many systems to spot us? 1/2

02.04.2025 20:22 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Assessing CAR T cells cytotoxic capacity at the single-cell level can be tricky.

Here we provide a method for encapsulating >500.000 single CAR T cells with single target cells in droplets together with reagents to examine killing using standard flow cytometry:

app.jove.com/t/67657/drop...

27.03.2025 19:01 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Wup wup!

27.03.2025 18:54 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Fresh Asteroid, Getcher Fresh Asteroid Here

A detailed look at fresh samples taken from asteroid Bennu confirms that organic chemistry (and the molecules of life) are everywhere:

31.01.2025 19:17 β€” πŸ‘ 59    πŸ” 14    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 7

Thank you for writing this

31.01.2025 21:57 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Jeg tror mere min tanke er: nu er jeg jo lige sluppet af med en dΓ₯rlig vane, sΓ₯ mΓ₯ske lige vent lidt inden man hopper i igen pΓ₯ en anden app

27.01.2025 20:23 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

You must have picked the two scientific fields with the most elaborate nomenclature ever πŸ˜…

12.01.2025 19:05 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

*Laughs in immunology*: you guys have it too easy, try coming up with new sub-celltype names every month or so. Who would have thought the immune system needed 100 different T cell types, but here we are

10.01.2025 23:37 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Remodelling of the immune landscape by IFNΞ³ counteracts IFNΞ³-dependent tumour escape in mouse tumour models - Nature Communications Losing sensitivity to IFNΞ³ may contribute to tumor immune escape, but containment of IFNΞ³-insensitive tumors is also reported. Here the authors show, by analyzing immune landscape differences between ...

Tumours escape the immune system by mutating to decrease their immunogenicity. In this study, now in
@natcomms.bsky.social, we described that immune cells can adapt to IFNg-driven escape, enhancing their fitness and thereby counteracting tumour escape www.nature.com/articles/s41...

04.01.2025 20:02 β€” πŸ‘ 29    πŸ” 14    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 2

It IS a fantastic book! Happy new year πŸŽ‰πŸ₯³

31.12.2024 21:37 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

BAFF/BAFF-R is really important for memory B cells it seems

31.12.2024 07:44 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Fantastic photo and super cool work. It reminds me of this study from 2012 where the authors compare T cell movement to sharks: www.nature.com/articles/nat... and youtu.be/0uf6vJq8lQY?.... I wonder how this study holds up against all these new fancy ways to track sharks

25.12.2024 12:00 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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We’re excited to announce the winning entries of the #RSPPhotoComp 2024! Follow along as we reveal the beautiful winning images of each category. Starting with #Behaviour and overall winner, 'The Hunt from Above' by @albiangela.bsky.social, with the help of drone pilot, @augustpaula.bsky.social.

11.12.2024 14:47 β€” πŸ‘ 16    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

Wohuu, very happy that you decided to move here!

22.12.2024 22:10 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I miss work with Semaphorins but holy moly it’s a complex system. Looks like some very cool work

14.12.2024 20:00 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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A single mutation in bovine influenza H5N1 hemagglutinin switches specificity to human receptors In 2024, several human infections with highly pathogenic clade 2.3.4.4b bovine influenza H5N1 viruses in the United States raised concerns about their capability for bovine-to-human or even human-to-h...

This is a concerning update about the ongoing status of #H5N1:

"In nature, the occurrence of this single mutation could be an indicator of human pandemic risk"

#IDSky #InfectiousDiseases #EpiSky #Epidemics

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

06.12.2024 21:31 β€” πŸ‘ 17    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

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