@LoriMills4CA42 is this statement really true? The doctors can prescribe Anktiva off label as long as the patient is willing to pay? That was not my understanding, given your experience and what I understand about the accessibility. From what I can tell, it does not seem like anybody can pay and get the prescription even with the doctor willing to do it. For some reason FDA has limited off label use for this drug in a way that they haven’t for other drugs
Concerning story about #COVID, #LongCOVID and cancer risk. Dovetails with the work we have been been doing with @drmfreire's team showing that persistent SARS-CoV-2 antigen found in the GI tract of pwLC is pro-inflammatory and oncogenic:
https://t.co/0jCfaCXQj0
Stay safe 🙏
“Exposure to respiratory viruses before a baby’s first birthday — when immune systems are immature and before most childhood vaccinations — consistently predicted reduced earnings, education and health decades later.”
A scientist spent 30 years studying an organ every textbook said was irrelevant. In 2026, two papers in Nature proved she had been right all along. The papers were not written by her.
Her name is Noel Rose Mackay. She is a thymic biologist who has studied the thymus since the 1990s, at a time when the field was considered a professional dead end.
The thymus is a small immune organ behind the breastbone. By the 1980s, medical consensus had settled: the thymus trains immune cells in childhood, shrinks at puberty, and stops functioning meaningfully in adults. Researching adult thymic function was considered a waste of time and grant funding.
Mackay and a small number of colleagues disagreed. They published research throughout the 1990s and 2000s arguing the thymus remained active in adults and that its ongoing T cell production mattered for immune health. The papers were published in smaller journals, cited rarely, and largely ignored by mainstream medicine.
For 30 years, clinical practice did not change. Radiologists reading millions of CT scans did not measure thymic health. Oncologists designing immunotherapy did not account for it. No clinical guideline mentioned it.
In March 2026, researchers at Mass General Brigham used artificial intelligence to analyse CT scans from over 25,000 adults. The AI found exactly what Mackay had argued for three decades.
Adults with healthier thymuses lived longer. 50% lower risk of death from any cause. 63% lower risk of cardiovascular death. 36% lower risk of lung cancer. In cancer patients receiving immunotherapy, stronger thymic health predicted a 37% lower risk of cancer progression and a 44% lower risk of death.
Two papers. Published simultaneously in Nature. Covered by Harvard Medical School, Mass General Brigham, and dozens of international outlets.
The researchers who wrote them work in artificial intelligence and cancer imaging. They were not thymic biologists. They were not looking for the thymus. The AI found it for them.
The science that spent 30 years being ignored was correct.
It took a machine looking at 25,000 scans without any prior assumptions to confirm what a small group of scientists had been saying for three decades.
Sometimes the reason a field is underfunded is not that the question is unimportant.
It is that the answer is inconvenient.
Written summaries of PolyBio’s Spring symposium presentations are available now! Check out shortened, simplified summaries, or full technical explanations of your favourite research projects.
Interactive resource: https://t.co/3pQ5BlIVQb
#longcovidresearch#mecfsresearch #lymeresearch
Said Dr. Mark Painter in a recent episode of PolyBio’s Lab Visits: “What we’re seeing in a third of people with Long COVID, maybe more, is evidence that T cells recognizing either SARS-CoV-2—or in some different people, herpesviruses—are persistently activated. Which is suggestive that those viruses are present somewhere in the body.”
Listen to the full interview here: https://t.co/g3CnbSqNsl
This is the article to amplify this week.
“Long COVID confirmed a difficult reality: modern healthcare systems are optimized for diseases that can be rapidly diagnosed, categorized, and treated — not illnesses that require uncertainty tolerance, longitudinal care, and deep listening.”
Long COVID Changed Everything https://t.co/oo6pNxyR1q
On with @ChrisCuomo soon. @AfricaCDC Leadership under Dr. Jean Kaseya is being highly proactive both in Congo and Uganda to address this crisis and patients with severe illness. Will discuss a universal finding of immune collapse with ebola and sepsis. @NewsNation
“For decades, a mysterious, two-lobed organ nestled behind the breastbone has been overlooked by most physicians, thought to be a largely useless lump for most of human life: the thymus.
Now, a raft of research is recasting the thymus from a bit player to a potent regulator of aging and immune health across the lifespan.”
https://t.co/V7TgShXPB9
Exciting news—we’re hosting Marc Elia at PolyBio’s Spring 2026 Symposium, who will be presenting on Invivyd’s collaboration with the SPEAR working group to develop monoclonal antibody therapies for Long COVID and post-COVID vaccination syndrome. This is one of the key presentations on May 22 addressing biomarker-guided clinical trials in the Long COVID field.
Register for the symposium here: https://t.co/pWwNZ8R9VD