Connor Dobson

Bioengineering to unlock new possibilities | Formerly PhD @MITdeptofBE (Birnbaum Lab) with a minor (major) virus obsession

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

@WashProbs Soko Butcher in Takoma Park (also run Harvey’s in Union Market now)

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

It’s hard not to get addicted to this.

From side conversations with @MEBirnbaum to an incredible result for patients. So proud of the Kelonia team for all the hard work it took to make this real.

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

These are the days that make the long hours worth it. Excited to see a technology I invented take this big step toward benefitting patients.

Grateful to the whole team at Kelonia for building what was once just cool tech into a real drug that could bring CAR-T to everyone.

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

Excited to see some movement on understanding the human thymus, and for everything @BrookeHuisman will build on from here 🚀

[Brooke Huisman @BrookeHuisman]

Thrilled to share our study, online today @ImmunityCP : thymic mimetic cells are evolutionarily ancient, with conserved and species-specific elements in humans, zebrafish, and mice. https://t.co/0p4081pbdx 1/n

[bioRxiv Immunology @biorxiv_immuno]

Peptide-MHC-targeted retroviruses enable in vivo expansion and gene delivery to tumor-specific T cells https://t.co/lsJzuIPQuv #biorxiv_immuno

[Jason Shepherd @JasonSynaptic]

Um..🤯. Freeze dried tissue preserves chromatin for centuries!

“…we dehydrated the tissue first. The architecture was fine….Ran over it with a car, had a former Astros starting pitcher throw a fastball at it, fired a shotgun at it. Still fine.”

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

Lots of good answers to this, but for me it has to be high-quality single-molecule protein sequencing methods. From basic science to the clinic, there’s so much we could learn from knowing what’s going on at the protein level in and out of cells

[Patrick Hsu @pdhsu]

15 years ago, we didn't have AI, single cell, CRISPR, RNA tech, or broad delivery tech (LNP, VLP, etc.) All of these will continue to mature and advance, but...

What will be the biggest biotechnologies 15 years from now?

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

@UrnovFyodor @Oncology_at_AZ @statnews I believe it was expression a dominant negative TGFBRII. A little bit of detail in slide 14 (from AACR 2023) here: https://t.co/rcDYjPDgFO

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

It’s been really cool to see the confluence of technology development and molecular insights that have enabled such detailed studies of viral molecules directly on viruses, performed safely and efficiently. Can’t wait for future progress in this space

[Bloom Lab @jbloom_lab]

In new study led by @bdadonaite, we measure how all mutations to H5 influenza HA affect four molecular phenotypes relevant to pandemic risk:
https://t.co/QOjVTF4h9L

Results can inform surveillance of ongoing evolution of H5N1.

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

@USPS apple pie stamps for 250 yrs of America in 2026? 👀👀👀

[Caleb Perez @calebrperez]

Excited to share some of my PhD work was pre-printed! Using single-cell sequencing, we took a deep look at a library of CAR signaling architectures to try to identify signal-intrinsic drivers of CAR-T function🧵👇 @MEBirnbaum @kochinstitute @MITdeptofBE

https://t.co/DHbwlFQlnB

[bioRxiv Immunology @biorxiv_immuno]

Library-based single-cell analysis of CAR signaling reveals drivers of in vivo persistence https://t.co/FrWgGEJnDd #biorxiv_immuno

[bioRxiv Immunology @biorxiv_immuno]

Pooled screening for CAR function identifies novel IL13Rα2-targeted CARs for treatment of glioblastoma https://t.co/n60R8SkpGp #biorxiv_immuno

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

Big day for the team!

[Keith Hornberger @KRHornberger]

There’s a frequent perception among recent entrants to drug discovery world that if we could just find drug candidates faster, this will be a useful accelerant to the overall process. The issue is: this thinking is mostly (but not entirely) incorrect. 🧵 1/

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

@Mykalt45 2 main theories have always stuck out to me:
1) There’s a T cell component that other modalities miss, and flu/cy conditioning takes care of this

2) CR requires eliminating all pathogenic cells, and leaving even a few enables relapse- flu/cy + CAR clears better than other tx

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

@RNAiAnalyst Looks like they’re reporting whole liver editing here, so it’s possible that distribution to hepatocytes vs other cells is different. They report hepatocyte editing as an estimate based on liver cellular composition on a subsequent slide

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

@pcr_guy I always see the wildest science in your QTs, in the best way. This is awesome

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

Can confirm - I used to get off the T early because it was faster to walk… What doesn’t make the headline is that wait times were often 10-15 minutes before getting on a standing room only train going slower than walking speed

[Matt Stout @MattPStout]

Tracks that opened for passenger service to Union Square in March 2022 and to Medford in December — and were shut down for repairs in recent months — are now so defective, the @MBTA says, that trains are moving slower than many people walk. https://t.co/hDlxydxhjK via @taydolven

[Connor Dobson @ItsVirusTime]

@BowTiedBiotech Definitely plenty of potential but there’s a lot to do to get there - need an order of magnitude more well-curated positive and negative data from diverse cohorts to approach decent prediction