Viktor, Ph. D

Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Piltover.

18+ RP account, MDNI #EJSVrp

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

Canon Divergent Au

18+ Rp Account

Older Viktor x Younger Jayce

Heimerdinger’s Successor x Escort

Strawpage: https://t.co/ZZqEagb5ub

His Jayce: @EscortJayce

[Nature Unedited @NatureUnedited]

A family of wild Pallas’s cats filmed in the grasslands of Qinghai Province, China, shows they look grumpier as they get older 🐈

[SciTech Era @SciTechera]

We are entering the era of biological computing.

Singapore just unveiled the world's first biological data center prototype with a reported ~16 million lab-grown human neurons.

It's established at the NUS Life Sciences Institute, it comprises 20 CL1 biological computing units.👀

These living neurons connect with computing hardware, process electrical signals and adapt, while built-in life-support systems keep them alive.

This project aims to explore whether biological computing could become a more adaptive and energy-efficient complement to conventional silicon-based systems.

[Jason Locasale @LocasaleLab]

When I first walked into my fellowship at an academic cancer hospital, I was shocked by how many of the “trainees” had gray hair.

The healthcare system keeps highly capable adults in apprenticeships until middle age, then insists the problem is that training is not long enough.

The same credentialing and middle-management class that drives up healthcare costs also benefits from keeping people in holding patterns into their 40s. In tech, politics, law, finance, and business, people make consequential decisions in their 20s.

Medicine instead demands more than a decade of redundant or unnecessary training before granting permission to work. The result is cheap labor, prolonged dependency, and an endless series of tollbooths for gatekeepers.

[🐄🐷P L U C C🐷 🐄 @siobhan_huggins]

I caught her sleeping like this. And you would think -- oh, of course, she's curled up into a doughnut on top of the books, that makes sense.
That's sensible.
But no.
Her real position was revealed by removing the two books that weren't pushed all the way in.

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

@EscortJayce [Link to the next part of the thread.]

https://t.co/WWgVGuKE3u

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

[NARRATIVE THREAD]

Around the back Viktor goes, to where the balconies look over the sea towards Shurima, hoping the fresh, vaguely salty air off the water will at very least quell some of the disdain burning his chest.. imagine his surprise, realizing someone had the same idea.

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

[NARRATIVE THREAD]

Viktor hadn't arrived all of ten minutes ago, and already felt a headache forming between his eyes. The music was too loud, the chatter reverberating... but he certainly couldn't refuse the invitation. And tell Heimerdinger to look elsewhere for a replacement?

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

@HagInTheSwamp Ahaha, I would not hold too much hope out for the second... Another intellectual, perhaps. We met very briefly, but I'm hoping to see more of him soon.

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

Well, it was... eventful, if nothing else. Productive... I suppose I did have a little fun, looking back on it. Thank you for asking.

https://t.co/ZZqEagb5ub

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

@HagInTheSwamp At a networking event, is it so surprising to say I met someone interesting?

[nature @Nature]

Scientists have extracted mitochondria from a woman’s leg muscles and injected them into her eyes in an attempt to treat severe blindness

https://t.co/8sW4vdqgzf

[Niko McCarty. @NikoMcCarty]

It is possible to image cells (using ultrasound) as they move through the body. This could transform medicine.

Consider a pharmaceutical company that wants to test whether an engineered immune cell, such as those used for CAR-T therapy, can detect and destroy cancer cells. At least six types of CAR-T cells have already passed through clinical trials and earned FDA approval. But during these clinical trials, only a handful of indicators are measured: the number of cells infused into the body, the size of the tumor over time, and some blood marker proxies for the immune system’s activity. Just about everything happening inside the body itself—the number of cells that make it to a tumor, the time it takes for them to reach that tumor, or the route by which they get there—is a mystery. But now there is a technology that enables us to *actually* figure out where those CAR-T cells moved through the body.

The secret is gas vesicles, or little protein shells that trap gas, rather than liquids or solids. If you engineer cells to express these gas vesicles, then they will show up very strongly on ultrasound scans (because everything else in the body is liquid; so the air acts as a contrast agent.)

In one paper, Mikhail Shapiro’s group at Caltech did exactly this. They used a lentivirus to put “acoustic reporter genes” (aka gas vesicles) into T cells, injected those T-cells into mice with cancer, and then watched “their function inside opaque living organs.” Brilliant.

(The image below is an E. coli bacterium with these gas vesicles.)

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

If anyone needs me, I think I'll be sleeping for the next few days. I'll see you all at the next gala, thank you to the academy for hosting, and thank you to everyone who took the time to say hello. I'll be back in the office following scheduled class hours.

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

@EscortJayce He takes his cane and his pride, and with that, wades his way back into the crowd, his mind abuzz with the kind of determination that a new project always brought.

Surely, it couldn't hurt so much to ask around as preliminary research.

[END THREAD]

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

[NARRATIVE THREAD]

Around the back Viktor goes, to where the balconies look over the sea towards Shurima, hoping the fresh, vaguely salty air off the water will at very least quell some of the disdain burning his chest.. imagine his surprise, realizing someone had the same idea.

[Jayce F. Talis @EscortJayce]

@SuccessorViktor Jayce wonders if the sound of his body hitting the ground would be loud enough to disrupt the festivities inside. He wonders if he’d want it to.

[Viktor, Ph. D @SuccessorViktor]

@EscortJayce Viktor props his cane on the railing for a moment to unbutton the pocket to his trousers, carefully slips both gifts inside, then secures them there, taking a steadying breath in, out.

There was clearly more to this. More he'd simply have to discover for himself.