3 ms·

Interesting article, the direct link to the paper is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7425399/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7425399

Interesting article, the direct link to the paper is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7425399/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7425399/ ALS is a difficult disease, both to detect early and obviously to treat. This paper is looking for a biomarker to try and detect it earlier and as a way of measuring the course of the disease. I watched my grandfather fade away from it, thankfully after a full life, so it's something I've experienced and wondered about As a tangent, there was a recent trial of a new therapeutic agent with modest benefit published in the NEJM. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1916945 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1916945 And accompanying editorial: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2021144?query=recirc_curatedRelated_article https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2021144?query=rec... Both are paywalled (the abstract is available in the first) unless you subscribe to NEJM or know your way around these kinds of things.

JPLeRouzic 6y ago
Thanks for this post. I looked at your website [0], those two cancer survival calculators are very interesting. While not being trained in biology or medicine, I did something a bit similar for ALS [1]. Jean-Pierre [0] https://www.predictsurvival.com/ https://www.predictsurvival.com/ [1] https://padiracinnovation.org/en/ALS/ https://padiracinnovation.org/en/ALS/
- Herodotus38 6y ago
  Thanks, yeah what our site does is basically let you quickly fill out a bunch of models that have been validated to give predictions for advanced cancer where the eventual outcome is more or less certain but to help people best use the time they have left it can help to get a general sense of how much time. Nothing is perfect but if they all seem to agree it can help people plan. It’s something that helps me when patients or family members want to know. I like to program as a hobby so it’s fun that way too to build things. I’m glad to see others doing work to bridge the gap between the research and things patients and clinicians can use. How are you deciding which areas of medicine to focus on?
  - JPLeRouzic 6y ago
    Sorry if I misunderstand you, English is not my native tongue. I have no intention to study medicine as I am a retired engineer. However I followed a master class in bioinformatics at a local university and several Coursera classes (Neuroscience and system biology). ALS is specially interesting for me as two people in my step family died of ALS. So there is a suspicion of familial ALS but nobody decided to be tested and under French laws genetic testing for ALS is a complicated process. Ideally I would like to design a computational model of ALS. I tried a few years ago [0], before I realized the complexity of the disease. In the mean time I try to improve public ALS understanding by publishing roughly every 4 days an article about a scientific publication. [0] https://github.com/Hjertesvikt/ALS_model https://github.com/Hjertesvikt/ALS_model
    - Herodotus38 6y ago
      I admire your commitment trying to tackle this, especially trying to come up with a model for the disease. There needs to be more intersection of medicine with engineers to advance things for patients. John-Patrick, a fellow JP

JPLeRouzic 6y ago

Thanks for this post. I looked at your website [0], those two cancer survival calculators are very interesting. While not being trained in biology or medicine, I did something a bit similar for ALS [1]. Jean-Pierre [0] https://www.predictsurvival.com/ https://www.predictsurvival.com/ [1] https://padiracinnovation.org/en/ALS/ https://padiracinnovation.org/en/ALS/

Herodotus38 6y ago
Thanks, yeah what our site does is basically let you quickly fill out a bunch of models that have been validated to give predictions for advanced cancer where the eventual outcome is more or less certain but to help people best use the time they have left it can help to get a general sense of how much time. Nothing is perfect but if they all seem to agree it can help people plan. It’s something that helps me when patients or family members want to know. I like to program as a hobby so it’s fun that way too to build things. I’m glad to see others doing work to bridge the gap between the research and things patients and clinicians can use. How are you deciding which areas of medicine to focus on?
- JPLeRouzic 6y ago
  Sorry if I misunderstand you, English is not my native tongue. I have no intention to study medicine as I am a retired engineer. However I followed a master class in bioinformatics at a local university and several Coursera classes (Neuroscience and system biology). ALS is specially interesting for me as two people in my step family died of ALS. So there is a suspicion of familial ALS but nobody decided to be tested and under French laws genetic testing for ALS is a complicated process. Ideally I would like to design a computational model of ALS. I tried a few years ago [0], before I realized the complexity of the disease. In the mean time I try to improve public ALS understanding by publishing roughly every 4 days an article about a scientific publication. [0] https://github.com/Hjertesvikt/ALS_model https://github.com/Hjertesvikt/ALS_model
  - Herodotus38 6y ago
    I admire your commitment trying to tackle this, especially trying to come up with a model for the disease. There needs to be more intersection of medicine with engineers to advance things for patients. John-Patrick, a fellow JP