Justin Becker

Thoracic oncologist and physician-scientist. Working to harness genomic dark matter to improve cancer immunotherapy. Views here are my own.

[Arjun Raj @arjunrajlab]

I had two undergrads in my office today working on a computational project. My normal advice in research is to use tools to their fullest to get to the cutting edge. For the first time, I was reluctant. I worry that using coding agents would rob them of something.

[Jason Sheltzer @JSheltzer]

AI is cool and all... but a new paper in @ScienceMagazine kind of figured out the origin of life?

The paper reports the discovery of a simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that can perfectly copy itself.

[Dana-Farber News @DanaFarberNews]

Could GLP-1 medications be a treatment pathway for some cancers? Novel research in @ScienceTM by @danafarber’s Erica Pimenta, MD, PhD, and @VanAllenLab uncovers promising targets that may lead to new targeted therapies for liposarcoma.

➡️ https://t.co/imI3hP9HG7

[Elizabeth McKenna @ElizSMcKenna]

Now online in @CD_AACR: CTCs Predict Response to the DLL3-targeting Bispecific Antibody Tarlatamab - by Avanish Mishra, Catherine Meador, @krukikkeri, Shyamala Maheswaran, @JustinGainor, Daniel Haber, and colleagues https://t.co/MIY79fQ3QG @MassGenBrigham @MGBResearchNews

[Hannah Abrams, MD @HannahRAbrams]

Wow. Data from @n8pennell & team @JCOOP_ASCO confirming the care fragmentation many of us see in real life.

Patients with metastatic NSCLC whose docs felt it was reasonable for them to restart treatment after rehabbing at a SNF:

- Only 54% saw outpt onc again
- 31% restarted tx

[Justin Becker @JustinSBecker]

So many biological tools, and so many principles — thousands of CRISPRs — remain undiscovered in the vast spaces of organismal diversity . (But here I am studying humans…)

[Michael 英泉 Eisen @mbeisen]

I share this enthusiasm for both model organisms and Drosophila, but the bigger tragedy of modern biology is our abandonment of the study of obscure biology just at the time when our ability to do so has become so powerful. Indeed many of the discoveries cited here came originally from experiments and observations in what we would call non-model organisms. Chromosome theory came from sea urchins and grasshoppers (and was validated in Drosophila), RNAi was first described in petunias and Neurospora before the mechanism began to be illuminated in nematodes, circadian clock genetics was worked out in flies, but a lot of important work was done in dinoflagellates.

[Daniel De Carvalho @decarvalho_lab]

Ten years ago, we discovered that reactivating transposable elements triggers an antiviral state in cancer cells, a process we named viral mimicry, unmasking tumors to the immune system (Roulois, Cell 2015). Now this idea finally reached patients with some impressive results:

[Justin Becker @JustinSBecker]

@DFCI_CancerBio @DanaFarber

[Justin Becker @JustinSBecker]

Ever wonder what makes your heart get stronger with exercise? @SumeetKhetarpal uncovered a gene and secreted factor that make all the difference between the heart getting stronger and actually getting weaker. As always, really elegant work. With @LabSpiegelman and @rosenzweig_a.

[Sumeet Khetarpal @SumeetKhetarpal]

Happy to share our manuscript published today on regulation of cardiac adaptation to exercise training by PGC-1α and GDF15 in @NatureCVR! https://t.co/gb1KSEchWM

[Benjamin Ryan @benryanwriter]

Hepatitis B is not solely transmitted through sex. It is also transmitted through blood, including sharing drug-use materials, and from mother to child (perinatally).

Before universal infant vaccination (recommended in 1991), about 18,000 U.S. infants were born each year to mothers with chronic hepatitis B. Many became infected perinatally.

Of infants infected at birth, ~90% develop chronic infection, and ~25% of those will eventually die of cirrhosis or liver cancer.

CDC modeling (1991–2000s) estimated that universal infant vaccination prevents ~3,000–4,000 deaths per birth cohort over a lifetime — largely from cirrhosis and liver cancer.

[Human Pangenome Reference Consortium @HumanPangenome]

The Human Pangenome Reference Consortium is building a more complete and inclusive reference for human genetics, one that better reflects human variation and drives new discoveries.

Our story: https://t.co/PgRUh3KOnT

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

a few days ago brian kilmeade said homeless people should be executed. jesse waters accused the left of trying to start a civil war. fox news spent years telling verifiable lies about dominion and the 2020 election.

canceling jimmy kimmel isn’t about an offensive line in a monologue. it’s about wielding state power to silence political opposition.

[Tommy Vietor @TVietor08]

Political violence is evil and indefensible. It's a cancer that will feed off itself and spread. Charlie Kirk is a human being with a family. Harming him or anyone else for their political views is disgusting and will rip this country apart and hurt everyone.

[Simona Cristea @simocristea]

🎯

[Justin Becker @JustinSBecker]

Very sorry to hear this happen to any lab, let alone to such a visionary scientist and consistent advocate for Peace. Best of luck for the rebuilding in these scary times.

[Jacob (Yaqub) Hanna - يعقوب حنا @jacob_hanna]

After being stuck in Hong Kong after ISSCR meeting unable to fly back home, I managed to get on a plane to London to stay with family.. only to learn now in the air that our institute was hit. My team is all safe which is what matters. My lab sustained serious blast damage but we shall overcome! #PeaceNow
Thanks for all the emails and messages.

[Jacob (Yaqub) Hanna - يعقوب حنا @jacob_hanna]

After being stuck in Hong Kong after ISSCR meeting unable to fly back home, I managed to get on a plane to London to stay with family.. only to learn now in the air that our institute was hit. My team is all safe which is what matters. My lab sustained serious blast damage but we shall overcome! #PeaceNow
Thanks for all the emails and messages.

[Seth Bannon @sethbannon]

@ashleevance This is why.

https://t.co/WkgQQmcctY

[Michael 英泉 Eisen @mbeisen]

The attacks on foreign researchers at Harvard and elsewhere are appalling. Scientists from other countries have enriched my education, training and research at every single stage of my career, and have become my closest and most cherished colleagues and friends. If there is a problem with researchers from other countries in the US it is that we do not value them enough, we do not appreciate how incredibly lucky we are that they have chosen - and were able - to come here, and we do not fight hard enough to make sure that they are welcome and that their status is not used against them in any way.

[Jewish Voice for Peace @jvplive]

We condemn last night’s fatal shooting of two staff of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. We are grounded first and foremost in the belief that all human life is precious, which is precisely why we are struggling for a world in which all people can live in safety and dignity.

[Ashish K. Jha @ashishkjha]

Wolfgang Ketterle, a Nobel laureate physicist at MIT was once asked why he stayed in the US despite generous offers to return to Germany.

Because, he said, his students come from every corner of the globe, and that intellectual diversity makes his science so much better