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Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

ChatGPT Searches and Advent of Meta Threads: What it Means for Social Media and Science 3.0

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

The following explains how popular ChatGPT has become and how the latest social media platforms, including Meta’s (FaceBook) new platform Threads, is becoming as popular or more popular than older social Platforms.  In fact, since its short inception since last week (Threads launced 7/07/2023), Threads is threatening Twitter for dominance in that market.

The following is taken from an email from Charlie Downing Jones from journoreasearch.org and  https://www.digital-adoption.com/ :

U.S. searches for ChatGPT overtake TikTok, Pinterest, and Zoom

  • Google searches for ChatGPT have overtaken TikTok in the U.S., jumping to 7.1 million monthly searches compared to 5.1 million
  • The term ‘ChatGPT’ is now one of the top 100 search terms in the U.S., ranking 92nd, according to Ahrefs data
  • ChatGPT is now searched more than most major social networks, including LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and Reddit

Analysis of Google search data reveals that online searches for ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, have overtaken most popular social networks in the U.S. This comes when search interest in artificial intelligence is at its highest point in history.

 

The findings by Digital-adoption.com reveal that US-based searches for ChatGPT have exploded and overtaken popular social networks, such as LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Tiktok, some by millions.

 

Ranking Keyword US Search Volume (Monthly)
1 Facebook                                  70,920,000
2 YouTube                                  69,260,000
3 Twitter                                  15,440,000
4 Instagram                                  12,240,000
5 ChatGPT                                  7,130,000
6 LinkedIn                                  6,990,000
7 Pinterest                                  5,790,000
8 TikTok                                  5,130,000
9 Reddit                                  4,060,000
10 Snapchat                                  1,280,000
11 WhatsApp                                  936,000

 

Since its release in November 2022, searches for ChatGPT have overtaken those of most major social networks. According to the latest June search figures by search tool Ahrefs, searches for ‘ChatGPT’ and ‘Chat GPT’ are made 7,130,000 times monthly in the U.S.

That’s more than the monthly search volume for most of the top ten social networks, including LinkedIn, Pinterest, and TikTok. TikTok is one of the largest growing social media apps, with 100 million users in just a year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The term ‘ChatGPT’ is now one of the top 100 search terms in the U.S., ranking 92nd, according to Ahrefs data

 

Searches for ChatGPT have eclipsed other major networks in the U.S., such as Reddit, by millions.

Every day search terms such as ‘maps’ and ‘flights’ have even seen their search volumes pale compared to the rising popularity of ChatGPT. ‘Maps’ is currently searched 440,000 times less than the chatbot each month, and ‘Flights’ is now Googled 2.2 million times less.

2023 has been a breakout year for AI, as searches for the term have more than doubled from 17 million in January 2023 to 42 million in May. In comparison, there were 7.9 million searches in January 2022. There has been an 825% increase in searches for ‘AI’ in the US compared to the average over the last five years.

There is a correlation between the uptick and the public releases of accessible AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, released on November 30, 2022, and Bing AI and Google Bard, released in May 2023.

According to TikTok data, interest in artificial intelligence has soared tenfold since 2020, and virtual reality has more than tripled.

AI has been a big topic of conversation this year as accessible AI chatbots and new technologies were released and sparked rapid adoption, prompting tech leaders like Elon Musk to call for AI regulation.

A spokesperson from Digital-adoption.com commented on the findings: “There has been a massive surge in AI interest this year. Apple’s announcement of Vision Pro has captured audiences at the right time, when new AI technologies, like ChatGPT, have become accessible to almost anyone. The rapid adoption of ChatGPT is surprising, with it becoming one of the fastest-growing tools available”.

All data was gathered from Ahrefs and Google Trends.

If using this story, please include a link to https://www.digital-adoption.com/ who conducted this study. A linked credit allows us to keep supplying you with content that you may find useful in the future.

 

If you need anything else, please get in touch.

All the best,
Charlie Dowling-Jones

 

charlie.dowling-jones@journoresearch.org

 

Journo Research

Part of Search Intelligence Ltd. Company registered in England No. 09361526

Why LPBI Needs to consider the new Meta Threads Platform

From Barrons

Threads Hits 100 Million Users Faster Than ChatGPT. Now It Needs Them to Stay.

 

By

Adam ClarkFollow

Updated July 10, 2023 9:00 am ET / Original July 10, 2023 7:44 am ET

The launch of Meta Platforms’ Threads looks to have outpaced even the viral success of ChatGPT in terms of signing up users. The next challenge will be keeping them around.

Since its inception on Thursday 7/07/2023, Meta’s new Threads platform has been signing up new users at an alarming rate.  On rollout date 5 million signed up, then 30 million by next morning and now as of today (7/1/2023) Threads has over 100 million signups.  Compare that to Twitter’s 436 million users, of which are tweeting on average 25% less than a few years ago, and it is easy to see why many social media pundits are calling Threads the new Twitter killer app.

 

Here are a few notes from the New York Times podcast The Daily

The Daily

1 day ago

Will Threads Kill Twitter?

Play • 33 min

Last week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, released Threads, a social media platform to compete with Twitter. In just 16 hours, Threads was downloaded more than 30 million times.

Mike Isaac, who covers tech companies and Silicon Valley for The Times, explains how Twitter became so vulnerable and discusses the challenges Meta faces to create a less toxic alternative.

Guest: Mike Isaac, a technology correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading:

Here are a few notes from the podcast:

Mike Isaac lamented that Twitter has become user unfriendly for a host of reasons.  These include:

  • The instant reply’guys’ – people who reply but don’t really follow you or your thread
  • Your followers or following are not pushed to top of thread
  • The auto bots – the automated Twitter bots
  • Spam feeds
  • The changes in service and all these new fees: Twitter push to monetize everything – like airlines

Elon Musk wanted to transform Twitter but his history is always cutting, not just trimming the excess but he is known to just eliminate departments just because he either doesn’t want to pay or CAN’T pay.  With Twitter he gutted content moderation.

 

Twitter ad business is plumetting but Musk wants to make Twitter a subscription business (the Blue check mark)

Twitter only gets a couple of million $ per month from Twitter Blue but Musk has to pay billions to just pay the interest on Twitter loan for Twitter puchase years ago

It is known that Musk is not paying rent on some California offices (some are suggesting he defaulted on leases) and Musk is selling Tesla stock to pay for Twitter expenses (why TSLA stock has been falling … the consensus out there)

Twitter is largest compendium of natural language conversations and Musk wanted to limit bots from scraping Twitter data to do AI and NLP on Twitter threads.  This is also a grievance from other companies… that these ‘scrapers’ are not paying enough for Twitter data.  However as Mike asks why do the little Twitter user have to pay in either fees or cutbacks from service.  (the reason why Elon is limiting viewing per day is to limit these bots from scraping Twitter for data)

Another problem is that Twitter does not have its own servers so pays a lot to Google and AWS for server space.  It appears Elon and Twitter are running out of money.

META and THREADS

Zuckerberg has spent billions of infrastructure spending and created a massive advertising ecosystem.  This is one of the thoughts behind his push and entry into this space.  Zuckerberg actually wanted to but Twitter a decade ago.

 

Usage and growth:  The launch of Threads was Thursday 7-07-23. There were 2 million initial signups and by next morning 30 million overnight.  Today Monday 7-10-23 there are 100 million, rivaling Twitter’s 436 million accounts.  And as Musk keeps canceling Twitter accounts, angering users over fees or usage restrictions, people are looking for a good platform.  Mastedon in too technical and not having the adoption like Meta Threads is having.  Mike Isaac hopes Threads will not go the way of Google Hangouts or Plus but Google strategy did not involve social media like Facebook.

Signup and issues: Signup on Threads is easy but you need to go through Instagram.  Some people have concerns about having their instagram thread put on their Threads feed but Mike had talked to the people at Meta and they are working to allow users to keep the feeds separate, mainly because Meta understands that the Instgagram and Twitter social cultures are different and users may want to keep Threads more business-like.

Important issues for LPBI: Twitter had decided, by end of May 2023 to end their relationship with WordPress JetPack service, in which WordPress posts could automatically be posted to your Twitter account and feed.  Twitter is making users like WordPress pay for this API and WordPress said it would be too expensive as Twitter is not making a flat fee but per usage fee.  This is a major hindrance even though the Twitter social share button is still active on posts.

Initial conversations between META and WordPress have indicated META will keep this API service free for WordPress.

 

So a little background on Meta Threads and signup features from Meta (Facebook) website:

Takeaways

  • Threads is a new app, built by the Instagram team, for sharing text updates and joining public conversations.
  • You log in using your Instagram account and posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length.
  • We’re working to soon make Threads compatible with the open, interoperable social networks that we believe can shape the future of the internet.

Mark Zuckerberg just announced the initial version of Threads, an app built by the Instagram team for sharing with text. Whether you’re a creator or a casual poster, Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations. We are working toward making  Threads compatible with the open, interoperable social networks that we believe can shape the future of the internet.

Instagram is where billions of people around the world connect over photos and videos. Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas. Just like on Instagram, with Threads you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests – including the people you follow on Instagram and beyond. And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls.

Join the Conversation from Instagram

It’s easy to get started with Threads: simply use your Instagram account to log in. Your Instagram username and verification will carry over, with the option to customize your profile specifically for Threads.

Everyone who is under 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private profile when they join Threads. You can choose to follow the same accounts you do on Instagram, and find more people who care about the same things you do. The core accessibility features available on Instagram today, such as screen reader support and AI-generated image descriptions, are also enabled on Threads.

Your feed on Threads includes threads posted by people you follow, and recommended content from new creators you haven’t discovered yet. Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length. You can easily share a Threads post to your Instagram story, or share your post as a link on any other platform you choose.

Tune Out the Noise

We built Threads with tools to enable positive, productive conversations. You can control who can mention you or reply to you within Threads. Like on Instagram, you can add hidden words to filter out replies to your threads that contain specific words. You can unfollow, block, restrict or report a profile on Threads by tapping the three-dot menu, and any accounts you’ve blocked on Instagram will automatically be blocked on Threads.

As with all our products, we’re taking safety seriously, and we’ll enforce Instagram’s Community Guidelines on content and interactions in the app. Since 2016 we’ve invested more than $16 billion in building up the teams and technologies needed to protect our users, and we remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and investments to protect our community.

Compatible with Interoperable Networks

Soon, we are planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub, the open social networking protocol established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the body responsible for the open standards that power the modern web. This would make Threads interoperable with other apps that also support the ActivityPub protocol, such as Mastodon and WordPress – allowing new types of connections that are simply not possible on most social apps today. Other platforms including Tumblr have shared plans to support the ActivityPub protocol in the future.

We’re committed to giving you more control over your audience on Threads – our plan is to work  with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service. Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks. If you have a public profile on Threads, this means your posts would be accessible from other apps, allowing you to reach new people with no added effort. If you have a private profile, you’d be able to approve users on Threads who want to follow you and interact with your content, similar to your experience on Instagram.

The benefits of open social networking protocols go well beyond the ways people can follow each other. Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation. Each compatible app can set its own community standards and content moderation policies, meaning people have the freedom to choose spaces that align with their values. We believe this decentralized approach, similar to the protocols governing email and the web itself, will play an important role in the future of online platforms.

Threads is Meta’s first app envisioned to be compatible with an open social networking protocol – we hope that by joining this fast-growing ecosystem of interoperable services, Threads will help people find their community, no matter what app they use.

What’s Next

We’re rolling out Threads today in more than 100 countries for iOS and Android, and people in those countries can download the app from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

In addition to working toward making Threads compatible with the ActivityPub protocol, soon we’ll be adding a number of new features to help you continue to discover threads and creators you’re interested in, including improved recommendations in feed and a more robust search function that makes it easier to follow topics and trends in real time.

 

Should Science Migrate over to Threads Instead of Twitter?

I have written multiple time of the impact of social media, Science and Web 2.0 and the new Science and Web 3.0 including

Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?

Science Has A Systemic Problem, Not an Innovation Problem

 

It, as of this writing, appears it is not crucial that scientific institutions need to migrate over to Threads yet, although the impetus is certainly there.  Many of the signups have of course been through Instagram (which is the only way to signup for now) and a search of @Threads does not show that large scientific organizations have signed up for now.

 

A search for NIH, NCBI, AACR, and Personalized Medicine Coalition or PMC which is the big MGH orgaization on personalized medicine appears to return nothing yet.  Pfizer and most big pharma is on @Threads now but that is because they maintain a marketing thread on Instagram.  How necessary is @Threads for communicating science over Science 3.0 platform remains to be seen.  In addition, how will @Threads be used for real time scientific conference coverage?  Will Meta be able to integrate with virtual reality?

Other articles of Note on this Open Access Scientific Journal Include:

Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?

Science Has A Systemic Problem, Not an Innovation Problem

Relevance of Twitter.com forthcoming Payment System for Scientific Content Promotion and Monetization

Is It Time for the Virtual Scientific Conference?: Coronavirus, Travel Restrictions, Conferences Cancelled

Part One: The Process of Real Time Coverage using Social Media

 

 

 

 

 

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How to Create a Twitter Space for @pharma_BI for Live Broadcasts

Right now, Twitter Spaces are available on Android and iOS operating systems ONLY.  For use on a PC desktop you must install an ANDROID EMULATOR.  This means best to set up the Twitter Space using your PHONE APP not on the desktop or laptop computer.  Right now, even though there is the ability to record a Twitter Space, that recording is not easily able to be embedded in WordPress as a tweet is (or chain of tweets).  However you can download the recording (takes a day or two) and convert to mpeg using a program like Audacity to convert into an audio format conducible to WordPress.

A while ago I had put a post where I link to a Twitter Space I created for a class on Dissemination of Scientific Discoveries.  The post

“Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?”

can be seen at

Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?

 

This online discussion was tweeted out and got a fair amount of impressions (60) as well as interactors (50).

 

 

About Twitter Spaces

 

Spaces is a way to have live audio conversations on Twitter. Anyone can join, listen, and speak in a Space on Twitter for iOS and Android. Currently you can listen in a Space on web.

Quick links

How to use Spaces
Spaces FAQ
Spaces Feedback Community
Community Spaces

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to use Spaces

Instructions for:

How do you start a Space?

 

 

 

Step 1

The creator of a Space is the host. As a host on iOS, you can start a Space by long pressing on the Tweet Composer  from your Home timeline and and then selecting the Spaces  icon.

You can also start a Space by selecting the Spaces tab on the bottom of your timeline.

Step 2

Spaces are public, so anyone can join as a listener, including people who don’t follow you. Listeners can be directly invited into a Space by DMing them a link to the Space, Tweeting out a link, or sharing a link elsewhere.

Step 3

Up to 13 people (including the host and 2 co-hosts) can speak in a Space at any given time. When creating a new Space, you will see options to Name your Space and Start your Space.

Step 4

To schedule a Space, select Schedule for later. Choose the date and time you’d like your Space to go live.

Step 5

Once the Space has started, the host can send requests to listeners to become co-hosts or speakers by selecting the people icon  and adding co-hosts or speakers, or selecting a person’s profile picture within a Space and adding them as a co-host or speaker. Listeners can request permission to speak from the host by selecting the Request icon below the microphone.

Step 6

When creating a Space, the host will join with their mic off and be the only speaker in the Space. When ready, select Start your Space.

Step 7

Allow mic access (speaking ability) to speakers by toggling Allow mic access to on.

Step 8

Get started chatting in your Space.

Step 9

As a host, make sure to Tweet out the link to your Space so other people can join. Select the  icon to Share via a Tweet.

 

Spaces FAQ

Where is Spaces available?

Anyone can join, listen, and speak in a Space on Twitter for iOS and Android. Currently, starting a Space on web is not possible, but anyone can join and listen in a Space.

Who can start a Space?

People on Twitter for iOS and Android can start a Space.

Who can see my Space?

For now, all Spaces are public like Tweets, which means they can be accessed by anyone. They will automatically appear at the top of your Home timeline, and each Space has a link that can be shared publicly. Since Spaces are publicly accessible by anyone, it may be possible for people to listen to a Space without being listed as a guest in the Space.

We make certain information about Spaces available through the Twitter Developer Platform, such as the title of a Space, the hosts and speakers, and whether it is scheduled, in progress, or complete. For a more detailed list of the information about Spaces we make available via the Twitter API, check out our Spaces endpoints documentation.

Can other people see my presence while I am listening or speaking in a Space?

Since all Spaces are public, your presence and activity in a Space is also public. If you are logged into your Twitter account when you are in a Space, you will be visible to everyone in the Space as well as to others, including people who follow you, people who peek into the Space without entering, and developers accessing information about the Space using the Twitter API.

If you are listening in a Space, your profile icon will appear with a purple pill at the top of your followers’ Home timelines. You have the option to change this in your settings.

Instructions for:

Manage who can see your Spaces listening activity

Step 1

On the left nav menu, select the more  icon and go to Settings and privacy.

Step 2

Under Settings, navigate to Privacy and safety.

Step 3

Under Your Twitter activity, go to Spaces.

Step 4

Choose if you want to Allow followers to see which Spaces you’re listening to by toggling this on or off.

Your followers will always see at the top of their Home timelines what Spaces you’re speaking in.

What does it mean that Spaces are public? Can anyone listen in a Space?

Spaces can be listened to by anyone on the Internet. This is part of a broader feature of Spaces that lets anyone listen to Spaces regardless of whether or not they are logged in to a Twitter account (or even have a Twitter account). Because of this, listener counts may not match the actual number of listeners, nor will the profile photos of all listeners necessarily be displayed in a Space.

How do I invite people to join a Space?

Invite people to join a Space by sending an invite via DM, Tweeting the link out to your Home timeline, or copying the invite link to send it out.

Who can join my Space?

For now, all Spaces are public and anyone can join any Space as a listener. If the listener has a user account, you can block their account. If you create a Space or are a speaker in a Space, your followers will see it at the top of their timeline.

Who can speak in my Space?

By default, your Space will always be set to Only people you invite to speak. You can also modify the Speaker permissions once your Space has been created. Select the  icon, then select Adjust settings to see the options for speaker permissions, which include EveryonePeople you follow, and the default Only people you invite to speak. These permissions are only saved for this particular Space, so any Space you create in the future will use the default setting.

Once your Space has started, you can send requests to listeners to become speakers or co-hosts by selecting the  icon and adding speakers or selecting a person’s profile picture within a Space and adding them as a co-host or speaker. Listeners can request to speak from the host.

Hosts can also invite other people outside of the Space to speak via DM.

How does co-hosting work?

Up to 2 people can become co-hosts and speak in a Space in addition to the 11 speakers (including the primary host) at one time. Co-host status can be lost if the co-host leaves the Space. A co-host can remove their own co-host status to become a Listener again.

Hosts can transfer primary admin rights to another co-host. If the original host drops from Space, the first co-host added will become the primary admin. The admin is responsible for promoting and facilitating a healthy conversation in the Space in line with the Twitter Rules.

Once a co-host is added to a Space, any accounts they’ve blocked on Twitter who are in the Space will be removed from the Space.

Can I schedule a Space?

Hosts can schedule a Space up to 30 days in advance and up to 10 scheduled Spaces. Hosts can still create impromptu Spaces in the meantime, and those won’t count toward the maximum 10 scheduled Spaces.

Before you create your Space, select the scheduler  icon and pick the date and time you’d like to schedule your Space to go live. As your scheduled start time approaches, you will receive push and in-app notifications reminding you to start your Space on time. If you don’t have notifications turned on, follow the in-app steps on About notifications on mobile devices to enable them for Spaces. Scheduled Spaces are public and people can set reminders to be notified when your scheduled Space begins.

How do I edit my scheduled Space(s)?

Follow the steps below to edit any of your scheduled Spaces.

Instructions for:

Manage your scheduled Spaces

Step 1

From your timeline, navigate to and long press on the . Or, navigate to the Spaces Tab  at the bottom of your timeline.

Step 2

Select the Spaces  icon.

Step 3

To manage your scheduled Spaces, select the scheduler  icon at the top.

Step 4

You’ll see the Spaces that you have scheduled.

Step 5

Navigate to the more  icon of the Space you want to manage. You can edit, share, or cancel the Space.

If you are editing your Space, make sure to select “Save changes” after making edits.

How do I get notified about a scheduled Space?

Guests can sign up for reminder notifications from a scheduled Space card in a Tweet. When the host starts the scheduled Space, the interested guests get notified via push and in-app notifications.

Can I record a Space?

Hosts can record Spaces they create for replay. When creating a Space, toggle on Record Space.

While recording, a recording symbol will appear at the top to indicate that the Space is being recorded by the host. Once the Space ends, you will see how many people attended the Space along with a link to share out via a Tweet. Under Notifications, you can also View details to Tweet the recording. Under host settings, you will have the option to choose where to start your recording with Edit start time. This allows you to cut out any dead air time that might occur at the beginning of a Space.

If you choose to record your Space, once the live Space ends, your recording will be immediately and publicly available for anyone to listen to whenever they want. You can always end a recording to make it no longer publicly available on Twitter by deleting your recording via the more  icon on the recording itself. Unless you delete your recording, it will remain available for replay after the live Space has ended.* As with live Spaces, Twitter will retain audio copies for 30 after they end to review for violations of the Twitter Rules. If a violation is found, Twitter may retain audio copies for up to 120 days in total. For more information on downloading Spaces, please see below FAQ, “What happens after a Space ends and is the data retained anywhere?

Co-hosts and speakers who enter a Space that is being recorded will see a recording symbol (REC). Listeners will also see the recording symbol, but they will not be visible in the recording.

Recordings will show the host, co-host(s), and speakers from the live Space.

*Note: Hosts on iOS 9.15+ and Android 9.46+ will be able to record Spaces that last indefinitely. For hosts on older app versions, recording will only be available for 30 days. For Spaces that are recorded indefinitely, Twitter will retain a copy for as long as the Space is replayable on Twitter, but for no less than 30 days after the live Space ended.

 

What is clipping?

Clipping is a new feature we’re currently testing and gradually rolling out that lets a limited group of hosts, speakers, and listeners capture 30 seconds of audio from any live or recorded Space and share it through a Tweet if the host has not disabled the clipping function. To start clipping a Space, follow the instructions below to capture the prior 30 seconds of audio from that Space. There is no limit to the number of clips that participants in a Space can create.

When you enter the Space as a co-host or speaker, you will be informed that the Space is clippable through a tool tip notification above the clipping  icon.

Note: Currently, creating a clip is available only on iOS and Android, while playing a clip is available on all platforms to everyone.

Instructions for:

Host instructions: How to turn off clipping

 

When you start your Space, you’ll receive a notification about what a clip is and how to turn it off, as clipping is on by default. You can turn off clipping at any time. To turn it off, follow the instructions below.

Step 1

Navigate to the more  icon.

Step 2

Select Adjust settings .

Step 3

Under Clips, toggle Allow clips off.

Instructions for:

Host and speaker instructions: How to create a clipping

Step 1

In a recorded or live Space that is recorded, navigate to the clipping  icon. Please note that, for live Spaces, unless the clipping function is disabled, clips will be publicly available on your Twitter profile after your live Space has ended even though the Space itself will no longer be available.

Step 2

On the Create clip pop-up, go to Next.

Step 3

Preview the Tweet and add a comment if you’d like, similarly to a Quote Tweet.

Step 4

Select Tweet to post it to your timeline.

Why is my clip not displaying captions?

What controls do hosts have over existing clips?

What controls do clip creators have over clips they’ve created?

Other controls over clips: how to report, block, or mute

What controls do I have over my Space?

The host and co-host(s) of a Space have control over who can speak. They can mute any Speaker, but it is up to the individual to unmute themselves if they receive speaking privileges. Hosts and co-hosts can also remove,  report, and block others in the Space.

Speakers and listeners can report and block others in the Space, or can report the Space. If you block a participant in the Space, you will also block that person’s account on Twitter. If the person you blocked joins as a listener, they will appear in the participant list with a Blocked label under their account name. If the person you blocked joins as a speaker, they will also appear in the participant list with a Blocked label under their account name and you will see an in-app notification stating, “An account you blocked has joined as a speaker.” If you are entering a Space that already has a blocked account as a speaker, you will also see a warning before joining the Space stating, “You have blocked 1 person who is speaking.”

If you are hosting or co-hosting a Space, people you’ve blocked can’t join and, if you’re added as a co-host during a Space, anyone in the Space who you blocked will be removed from the Space.

What are my responsibilities as a Host or Co-Host of a Space?

As a Host, you are responsible for promoting and supporting a healthy conversation in your Space and to use your tools to ensure that the Twitter Rules are followed. The following tools are available for you to use if a participant in the Space is being offensive or disruptive:

  • Revoke speaking privileges of other users if they are being offensive or disruptive to you or others
  • Block, remove or report the user.

Here are some guidelines to follow as a Host or Co-Host:

  • Always follow the Twitter Rulesin the Space you host or co-host. This also applies to the title of your Space which should not include abusive slurs, threats, or any other rule-violating content.
  • Do not encourage behavior or content that violates the Twitter Rules.
  • Do not abuse or misuse your hosting tools, such as arbitrarily revoking speaking privileges or removing users, or use Spaces to carry out activities that break our rules such as following schemes.

How can I block someone in a Space?

How can I mute a speaker in a Space?

How can I see people in my Space?

Hosts, speakers, and listeners can select the  icon to see people in a Space. Since Spaces are publicly accessible by anyone, it may also be possible for an unknown number of logged-out people to listen to a Space’s audio without being listed as a guest in the Space.

How can I report a Space?

How can I report a person in a Space?

Can Twitter suspend my Space while it’s live?

How many people can speak in a Space?

How many people can listen in a Space?

 

What happens after a Space ends and is the data retained anywhere?

Hosts can choose to record a Space prior to starting it. Hosts may download copies of their recorded Spaces for as long as we have them by using the Your Twitter Data download tool.

For unrecorded Spaces, Twitter retains copies of audio from recorded Spaces for 30 days after a Space ends to review for violations of the Twitter Rules. If a Space is found to contain a violation, we extend the time we maintain a copy for an additional 90 days (a total of 120 days after a Space ends) to allow people to appeal if they believe there was a mistake. Twitter also uses Spaces content and data for analytics and research to improve the service.

Links to Spaces that are shared out (e.g., via Tweet or DM) also contain some information about the Space, including the description, the identity of the hosts and others in the Space, as well as the Space’s current state (e.g., scheduled, live, or ended). We make this and other information about Spaces available through the Twitter Developer Platform. For a detailed list of the information about Spaces we make available, check out our Spaces endpoints documentation.

For full details on what data we retain, visit our Privacy Policy.

Who can end a Space?

Does Spaces work for accounts with protected Tweets?

Following the Twitter Rules in Spaces

 

Spaces Feedback Community

We’re opening up the conversation and turning it over to the people who are participating in Spaces. This Community is a dedicated place for us to connect with you on all things Spaces, whether it’s feedback around features, ideas for improvement, or any general thoughts.

Who can join?

Anyone on Spaces can join, whether you are a host, speaker, or listener.

How do I join the Community?

You can request to join the Twitter Spaces Feedback Community here. By requesting to join, you are agreeing to our Community rules.

Learn more about Communities on Twitter.

 

Community Spaces

As a Community admin or moderator, you can create and host a Space for your Community members to join.

Note:

Currently, creating Community Spaces is only available to some admins and moderators using the Twitter for iOS and Twitter for Android apps.

Instructions for:

Admins & moderators: How to create a Space

Step 1

Navigate to the Community landing page.

Step 2

Long press on the Tweet Composer  and select the Spaces  icon.

Step 3

Select Spaces and begin creating your Space by adding in a title, toggling on record Space (optional), and adding relevant topics.

Step 4

Invite admins, moderators, and other people to be a part of your Space.

Members: How to find a Community Space

If a Community Space is live, you will see the Spacebar populate at the top of your Home timeline. To enter the Space and begin listening, select the live Space in the Spacebar.

Community Spaces FAQ

What are Community Spaces?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spaces Social Narrative


A social narrative is a simple story that describes social situations and social behaviors for accessibility.

Twitter Spaces allows me to join or host live audio-only conversations with anyone.

Joining a Space

  1. When I join a Twitter Space, that means I’ll be a listener. I can join any Space on Twitter, even those hosted by people I don’t know or follow.
  2. I can join a Space by selecting a profile photo with a purple, pulsing outline at the top of my timeline, selecting a link from someone’s Tweet, or a link in a Direct Message (DM).
  3. Once I’m in a Space, I can seethe profile photos and names of some people in the Space, including myself.
  4. I can hearone or multiple people talking at the same time. If it’s too loud or overwhelming, I can turn down my volume.
  5. As a listener, I am not able to speak. If I want to say something, I can send a request to the host. The host might not approve my request though.
  6. If the host accepts my request, I will become a speaker. It may take a few seconds to connect my microphone, so I’ll have to wait.
  7. Now I can unmute myself and speak. Everyone in the Space will be able to hear me.
  8. When someone says something I want to react to, I can choosean emoji to show everyone how I feel. I will be able to see when other people react as well.
  9. I can leave the Space at any time. After I leave, or when the host ends the Space, I’ll go back to my timeline.

Hosting a Space

  1. When I start a Space, that means I’ll be the host. Anyone can join my Space, even people I don’t know and people I don’t follow.
  2. Once I start my space, it may take a few seconds to be connected, so I’ll have to wait.
  3. Now I’m in my Space and I can seemy profile photo. If other logged-in, people have joined, I will be able to see their profile photos, too.
  4. I will start out muted, which is what the microphone with a slash through it means. I can mute and unmute myself, and anyone in my Space, at any time.
  5. I can invitepeople to join my Space by sending them a Direct Message (DM), sharing the link in a Tweet, and by copying the link and sharing it somewhere else like in an email.
  6. Up to 10 other people can have speaking privileges in my Space at the same time, and I can choosewho speaks and who doesn’t. People can also request to speak, and I can choose to approve their request or not.

 

Read Full Post »

Will Web 3.0 Do Away With Science 2.0? Is Science Falling Behind?

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

UPDATED 4/06/2022

A while back (actually many moons ago) I had put on two posts on this site:

Scientific Curation Fostering Expert Networks and Open Innovation: Lessons from Clive Thompson and others

Twitter is Becoming a Powerful Tool in Science and Medicine

Each of these posts were on the importance of scientific curation of findings within the realm of social media and the Web 2.0; a sub-environment known throughout the scientific communities as Science 2.0, in which expert networks collaborated together to produce massive new corpus of knowledge by sharing their views, insights on peer reviewed scientific findings. And through this new media, this process of curation would, in itself generate new ideas and new directions for research and discovery.

The platform sort of looked like the image below:

 

This system lied above a platform of the original Science 1.0, made up of all the scientific journals, books, and traditional literature:

In the old Science 1.0 format, scientific dissemination was in the format of hard print journals, and library subscriptions were mandatory (and eventually expensive). Open Access has tried to ameliorate the expense problem.

Previous image source: PeerJ.com

To index the massive and voluminous research and papers beyond the old Dewey Decimal system, a process of curation was mandatory. The dissemination of this was a natural for the new social media however the cost had to be spread out among numerous players. Journals, faced with the high costs of subscriptions and their only way to access this new media as an outlet was to become Open Access, a movement first sparked by journals like PLOS and PeerJ but then begrudingly adopted throughout the landscape. But with any movement or new adoption one gets the Good the Bad and the Ugly (as described in my cited, above, Clive Thompson article). The bad side of Open Access Journals were

  1. costs are still assumed by the individual researcher not by the journals
  2. the arise of the numerous Predatory Journals

 

Even PeerJ, in their column celebrating an anniversary of a year’s worth of Open Access success stories, lamented the key issues still facing Open Access in practice

  • which included the cost and the rise of predatory journals.

In essence, Open Access and Science 2.0 sprung full force BEFORE anyone thought of a way to defray the costs

 

Can Web 3.0 Finally Offer a Way to Right the Issues Facing High Costs of Scientific Publishing?

What is Web 3.0?

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3

Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 refer to eras in the history of the Internet as it evolved through various technologies and formats. Web 1.0 refers roughly to the period from 1991 to 2004, where most websites were static webpages, and the vast majority of users were consumers, not producers, of content.[6][7] Web 2.0 is based around the idea of “the web as platform”,[8] and centers on user-created content uploaded to social-networking services, blogs, and wikis, among other services.[9] Web 2.0 is generally considered to have begun around 2004, and continues to the current day.[8][10][4]

Terminology[edit]

The term “Web3”, specifically “Web 3.0”, was coined by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood in 2014.[1] In 2020 and 2021, the idea of Web3 gained popularity[citation needed]. Particular interest spiked towards the end of 2021, largely due to interest from cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investments from high-profile technologists and companies.[4][5] Executives from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz travelled to Washington, D.C. in October 2021 to lobby for the idea as a potential solution to questions about Internet regulation with which policymakers have been grappling.[11]

Web3 is distinct from Tim Berners-Lee‘s 1999 concept for a semantic web, which has also been called “Web 3.0”.[12] Some writers referring to the decentralized concept usually known as “Web3” have used the terminology “Web 3.0”, leading to some confusion between the two concepts.[2][3] Furthermore, some visions of Web3 also incorporate ideas relating to the semantic web.[13][14]

Concept[edit]

Web3 revolves around the idea of decentralization, which proponents often contrast with Web 2.0, wherein large amounts of the web’s data and content are centralized in the fairly small group of companies often referred to as Big Tech.[4]

Specific visions for Web3 differ, but all are heavily based in blockchain technologies, such as various cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).[4] Bloomberg described Web3 as an idea that “would build financial assets, in the form of tokens, into the inner workings of almost anything you do online”.[15] Some visions are based around the concepts of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).[16] Decentralized finance (DeFi) is another key concept; in it, users exchange currency without bank or government involvement.[4] Self-sovereign identity allows users to identify themselves without relying on an authentication system such as OAuth, in which a trusted party has to be reached in order to assess identity.[17]

Reception[edit]

Technologists and journalists have described Web3 as a possible solution to concerns about the over-centralization of the web in a few “Big Tech” companies.[4][11] Some have expressed the notion that Web3 could improve data securityscalability, and privacy beyond what is currently possible with Web 2.0 platforms.[14] Bloomberg states that sceptics say the idea “is a long way from proving its use beyond niche applications, many of them tools aimed at crypto traders”.[15] The New York Times reported that several investors are betting $27 billion that Web3 “is the future of the internet”.[18][19]

Some companies, including Reddit and Discord, have explored incorporating Web3 technologies into their platforms in late 2021.[4][20] After heavy user backlash, Discord later announced they had no plans to integrate such technologies.[21] The company’s CEO, Jason Citron, tweeted a screenshot suggesting it might be exploring integrating Web3 into their platform. This led some to cancel their paid subscriptions over their distaste for NFTs, and others expressed concerns that such a change might increase the amount of scams and spam they had already experienced on crypto-related Discord servers.[20] Two days later, Citron tweeted that the company had no plans to integrate Web3 technologies into their platform, and said that it was an internal-only concept that had been developed in a company-wide hackathon.[21]

Some legal scholars quoted by The Conversation have expressed concerns over the difficulty of regulating a decentralized web, which they reported might make it more difficult to prevent cybercrimeonline harassmenthate speech, and the dissemination of child abuse images.[13] But, the news website also states that, “[decentralized web] represents the cyber-libertarian views and hopes of the past that the internet can empower ordinary people by breaking down existing power structures.” Some other critics of Web3 see the concept as a part of a cryptocurrency bubble, or as an extension of blockchain-based trends that they see as overhyped or harmful, particularly NFTs.[20] Some critics have raised concerns about the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Others have expressed beliefs that Web3 and the associated technologies are a pyramid scheme.[5]

Kevin Werbach, author of The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust,[22] said that “many so-called ‘web3’ solutions are not as decentralized as they seem, while others have yet to show they are scalable, secure and accessible enough for the mass market”, adding that this “may change, but it’s not a given that all these limitations will be overcome”.[23]

David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain,[24] told The Register that “web3 is a marketing buzzword with no technical meaning. It’s a melange of cryptocurrencies, smart contracts with nigh-magical abilities, and NFTs just because they think they can sell some monkeys to morons”.[25]

Below is an article from MarketWatch.com Distributed Ledger series about the different forms and cryptocurrencies involved

From Marketwatch: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-is-so-2021-heres-why-some-institutions-are-set-to-bypass-the-no-1-crypto-and-invest-in-ethereum-other-blockchains-next-year-11639690654?mod=home-page

by Frances Yue, Editor of Distributed Ledger, Marketwatch.com

Clayton Gardner, co-CEO of crypto investment management firm Titan, told Distributed Ledger that as crypto embraces broader adoption, he expects more institutions to bypass bitcoin and invest in other blockchains, such as Ethereum, Avalanche, and Terra in 2022. which all boast smart-contract features.

Bitcoin traditionally did not support complex smart contracts, which are computer programs stored on blockchains, though a major upgrade in November might have unlocked more potential.

“Bitcoin was originally seen as a macro speculative asset by many funds and for many it still is,” Gardner said. “If anything solidifies its use case, it’s a store of value. It’s not really used as originally intended, perhaps from a medium of exchange perspective.”

For institutions that are looking for blockchains that can “produce utility and some intrinsic value over time,” they might consider some other smart contract blockchains that have been driving the growth of decentralized finance and web 3.0, the third generation of the Internet, according to Gardner. 

Bitcoin is still one of the most secure blockchains, but I think layer-one, layer-two blockchains beyond Bitcoin, will handle the majority of transactions and activities from NFT (nonfungible tokens) to DeFi,“ Gardner said. “So I think institutions see that and insofar as they want to put capital to work in the coming months, I think that could be where they just pump the capital.”

Decentralized social media? 

The price of Decentralized Social, or DeSo, a cryptocurrency powering a blockchain that supports decentralized social media applications, surged roughly 74% to about $164 from $94, after Deso was listed at Coinbase Pro on Monday, before it fell to about $95, according to CoinGecko.

In the eyes of Nader Al-Naji, head of the DeSo foundation, decentralized social media has the potential to be “a lot bigger” than decentralized finance.

“Today there are only a few companies that control most of what we see online,” Al-Naji told Distributed Ledger in an interview. But DeSo is “creating a lot of new ways for creators to make money,” Al-Naji said.

“If you find a creator when they’re small, or an influencer, you can invest in that, and then if they become bigger and more popular, you make money and they make and they get capital early on to produce their creative work,” according to AI-Naji.

BitClout, the first application that was created by AI-Naji and his team on the DeSo blockchain, had initially drawn controversy, as some found that they had profiles on the platform without their consent, while the application’s users were buying and selling tokens representing their identities. Such tokens are called “creator coins.”

AI-Naji responded to the controversy saying that DeSo now supports more than 200 social-media applications including Bitclout. “I think that if you don’t like those features, you now have the freedom to use any app you want. Some apps don’t have that functionality at all.”

 

But Before I get to the “selling monkeys to morons” quote,

I want to talk about

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GOOD

My foray into Science 2.0 and then pondering what the movement into a Science 3.0 led me to an article by Dr. Vladimir Teif, who studies gene regulation and the nucleosome, as well as creating a worldwide group of scientists who discuss matters on chromatin and gene regulation in a journal club type format.

For more information on this Fragile Nucleosome journal club see https://generegulation.org/fragile-nucleosome/.

Fragile Nucleosome is an international community of scientists interested in chromatin and gene regulation. Fragile Nucleosome is active in several spaces: one is the Discord server where several hundred scientists chat informally on scientific matters. You can join the Fragile Nucleosome Discord server. Another activity of the group is the organization of weekly virtual seminars on Zoom. Our webinars are usually conducted on Wednesdays 9am Pacific time (5pm UK, 6pm Central Europe). Most previous seminars have been recorded and can be viewed at our YouTube channel. The schedule of upcoming webinars is shown below. Our third activity is the organization of weekly journal clubs detailed at a separate page (Fragile Nucleosome Journal Club).

 

His lab site is at https://generegulation.org/ but had published a paper describing what he felt what the #science2_0 to #science3_0 transition would look like (see his blog page on this at https://generegulation.org/open-science/).

This concept of science 3.0 he had coined back in 2009.  As Dr Teif had mentioned

So essentially I first introduced this word Science 3.0 in 2009, and since then we did a lot to implement this in practice. The Twitter account @generegulation is also one of examples

 

This is curious as we still have an ill defined concept of what #science3_0 would look like but it is a good read nonetheless.

His paper,  entitled “Science 3.0: Corrections to the Science 2.0 paradigm” is on the Cornell preprint server at https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.2522 

 

Abstract

Science 3.0: Corrections to the Science 2.0 paradigm

The concept of Science 2.0 was introduced almost a decade ago to describe the new generation of online-based tools for researchers allowing easier data sharing, collaboration and publishing. Although technically sound, the concept still does not work as expected. Here we provide a systematic line of arguments to modify the concept of Science 2.0, making it more consistent with the spirit and traditions of science and Internet. Our first correction to the Science 2.0 paradigm concerns the open-access publication models charging fees to the authors. As discussed elsewhere, we show that the monopoly of such publishing models increases biases and inequalities in the representation of scientific ideas based on the author’s income. Our second correction concerns post-publication comments online, which are all essentially non-anonymous in the current Science 2.0 paradigm. We conclude that scientific post-publication discussions require special anonymization systems. We further analyze the reasons of the failure of the current post-publication peer-review models and suggest what needs to be changed in Science 3.0 to convert Internet into a large journal club. [bold face added]
In this paper it is important to note the transition of a science 1.0, which involved hard copy journal publications usually only accessible in libraries to a more digital 2.0 format where data, papers, and ideas could be easily shared among networks of scientists.
As Dr. Teif states, the term “Science 2.0” had been coined back in 2009, and several influential journals including Science, Nature and Scientific American endorsed this term and suggested scientists to move online and their discussions online.  However, even at present there are thousands on this science 2.0 platform, Dr Teif notes the number of scientists subscribed to many Science 2.0 networking groups such as on LinkedIn and ResearchGate have seemingly saturated over the years, with little new members in recent times. 
The consensus is that science 2.0 networking is:
  1. good because it multiplies the efforts of many scientists, including experts and adds to the scientific discourse unavailable on a 1.0 format
  2. that online data sharing is good because it assists in the process of discovery (can see this evident with preprint servers, bio-curated databases, Github projects)
  3. open-access publishing is beneficial because free access to professional articles and open-access will be the only publishing format in the future (although this is highly debatable as many journals are holding on to a type of “hybrid open access format” which is not truly open access
  4. only sharing of unfinished works and critiques or opinions is good because it creates visibility for scientists where they can receive credit for their expert commentary

There are a few concerns on Science 3.0 Dr. Teif articulates:

A.  Science 3.0 Still Needs Peer Review

Peer review of scientific findings will always be an imperative in the dissemination of well-done, properly controlled scientific discovery.  As Science 2.0 relies on an army of scientific volunteers, the peer review process also involves an army of scientific experts who give their time to safeguard the credibility of science, by ensuring that findings are reliable and data is presented fairly and properly.  It has been very evident, in this time of pandemic and the rapid increase of volumes of preprint server papers on Sars-COV2, that peer review is critical.  Many of these papers on such preprint servers were later either retracted or failed a stringent peer review process.

Now many journals of the 1.0 format do not generally reward their peer reviewers other than the self credit that researchers use on their curriculum vitaes.  Some journals, like the MDPI journal family, do issues peer reviewer credits which can be used to defray the high publication costs of open access (one area that many scientists lament about the open access movement; where the burden of publication cost lies on the individual researcher).

An issue which is highlighted is the potential for INFORMATION NOISE regarding the ability to self publish on Science 2.0 platforms.

 

The NEW BREED was born in 4/2012

An ongoing effort on this platform, https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/, is to establish a scientific methodology for curating scientific findings where one the goals is to assist to quell the information noise that can result from the massive amounts of new informatics and data occurring in the biomedical literature. 

B.  Open Access Publishing Model leads to biases and inequalities in the idea selection

The open access publishing model has been compared to the model applied by the advertising industry years ago and publishers then considered the journal articles as “advertisements”.  However NOTHING could be further from the truth.  In advertising the publishers claim the companies not the consumer pays for the ads.  However in scientific open access publishing, although the consumer (libraries) do not pay for access the burden of BOTH the cost of doing the research and publishing the findings is now put on the individual researcher.  Some of these publishing costs can be as high as $4000 USD per article, which is very high for most researchers.  However many universities try to refund the publishers if they do open access publishing so it still costs the consumer and the individual researcher, limiting the cost savings to either.  

However, this sets up a situation in which young researchers, who in general are not well funded, are struggling with the publication costs, and this sets up a bias or inequitable system which rewards the well funded older researchers and bigger academic labs.

C. Post publication comments and discussion require online hubs and anonymization systems

Many recent publications stress the importance of a post-publication review process or system yet, although many big journals like Nature and Science have their own blogs and commentary systems, these are rarely used.  In fact they show that there are just 1 comment per 100 views of a journal article on these systems.  In the traditional journals editors are the referees of comments and have the ability to censure comments or discourse.  The article laments that comments should be easy to do on journals, like how easy it is to make comments on other social sites, however scientists are not offering their comments or opinions on the matter. 

In a personal experience, 

a well written commentary goes through editors which usually reject a comment like they were rejecting an original research article.  Thus many scientists, I believe, after fashioning a well researched and referenced reply, do not get the light of day if not in the editor’s interests.  

Therefore the need for anonymity is greatly needed and the lack of this may be the hindrance why scientific discourse is so limited on these types of Science 2.0 platforms.  Platforms that have success in this arena include anonymous platforms like Wikipedia or certain closed LinkedIn professional platforms but more open platforms like Google Knowledge has been a failure.

A great example on this platform was a very spirited conversation on LinkedIn on genomics, tumor heterogeneity and personalized medicine which we curated from the LinkedIn discussion (unfortunately LinkedIn has closed many groups) seen here:

Issues in Personalized Medicine: Discussions of Intratumor Heterogeneity from the Oncology Pharma forum on LinkedIn

 

 

Issues in Personalized Medicine: Discussions of Intratumor Heterogeneity from the Oncology Pharma forum on LinkedIn

 

In this discussion, it was surprising that over a weekend so many scientists from all over the world contributed to a great discussion on the topic of tumor heterogeneity.

But many feel such discussions would be safer if they were anonymized.  However then researchers do not get any credit for their opinions or commentaries.

A Major problem is how to take the intangible and make them into tangible assets which would both promote the discourse as well as reward those who take their time to improve scientific discussion.

This is where something like NFTs or a decentralized network may become important!

See

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/portfolio-of-ip-assets/

 

UPDATED 5/09/2022

Below is an online @TwitterSpace Discussion we had with some young scientists who are just starting out and gave their thoughts on what SCIENCE 3.0 and the future of dissemination of science might look like, in light of this new Meta Verse.  However we have to define each of these terms in light of Science and not just the Internet as merely a decentralized marketplace for commonly held goods.

This online discussion was tweeted out and got a fair amount of impressions (60) as well as interactors (50).

 For the recording on both Twitter as well as on an audio format please see below

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Set a reminder for my upcoming Space! <a href=”https://t.co/7mOpScZfGN”>https://t.co/7mOpScZfGN</a&gt; <a href=”https://twitter.com/Pharma_BI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@Pharma_BI</a&gt; <a href=”https://twitter.com/PSMTempleU?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@PSMTempleU</a&gt; <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/science3_0?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#science3_0</a&gt; <a href=”https://twitter.com/science2_0?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@science2_0</a></p>&mdash; Stephen J Williams (@StephenJWillia2) <a href=”https://twitter.com/StephenJWillia2/status/1519776668176502792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April 28, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js&#8221; charset=”utf-8″></script>

 

 

To introduce this discussion first a few startoff material which will fram this discourse

 






The Intenet and the Web is rapidly adopting a new “Web 3.0” format, with decentralized networks, enhanced virtual experiences, and greater interconnection between people. Here we start the discussion what will the move from Science 2.0, where dissemination of scientific findings was revolutionized and piggybacking on Web 2.0 or social media, to a Science 3.0 format. And what will it involve or what paradigms will be turned upside down?

Old Science 1.0 is still the backbone of all scientific discourse, built on the massive amount of experimental and review literature. However this literature was in analog format, and we moved to a more accesible digital open access format for both publications as well as raw data. However as there was a structure for 1.0, like the Dewey decimal system and indexing, 2.0 made science more accesible and easier to search due to the newer digital formats. Yet both needed an organizing structure; for 1.0 that was the scientific method of data and literature organization with libraries as the indexers. In 2.0 this relied on an army mostly of volunteers who did not have much in the way of incentivization to co-curate and organize the findings and massive literature.

Each version of Science has their caveats: their benefits as well as deficiencies. This curation and the ongoing discussion is meant to solidy the basis for the new format, along with definitions and determination of structure.

We had high hopes for Science 2.0, in particular the smashing of data and knowledge silos. However the digital age along with 2.0 platforms seemed to excaccerbate this somehow. We still are critically short on analysis!

 

We really need people and organizations to get on top of this new Web 3.0 or metaverse so the similar issues do not get in the way: namely we need to create an organizing structure (maybe as knowledgebases), we need INCENTIVIZED co-curators, and we need ANALYSIS… lots of it!!

Are these new technologies the cure or is it just another headache?

 

There were a few overarching themes whether one was talking about AI, NLP, Virtual Reality, or other new technologies with respect to this new meta verse and a concensus of Decentralized, Incentivized, and Integrated was commonly expressed among the attendees

The Following are some slides from representative Presentations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other article of note on this topic on this Open Access Scientific Journal Include:

Electronic Scientific AGORA: Comment Exchanges by Global Scientists on Articles published in the Open Access Journal @pharmaceuticalintelligence.com – Four Case Studies

eScientific Publishing a Case in Point: Evolution of Platform Architecture Methodologies and of Intellectual Property Development (Content Creation by Curation) Business Model 

e-Scientific Publishing: The Competitive Advantage of a Powerhouse for Curation of Scientific Findings and Methodology Development for e-Scientific Publishing – LPBI Group, A Case in Point

@PharmaceuticalIntelligence.com –  A Case Study on the LEADER in Curation of Scientific Findings

Real Time Coverage @BIOConvention #BIO2019: Falling in Love with Science: Championing Science for Everyone, Everywhere

Old Industrial Revolution Paradigm of Education Needs to End: How Scientific Curation Can Transform Education

 

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Live Conference Coverage AACR 2020 in Real Time: Monday June 22, 2020 8AM-Noon Sessions

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Follow Live in Real Time using

#AACR20

@pharma_BI

@AACR

 

Register for FREE at https://www.aacr.org/

AACR VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING II

 

June 22-24: Free Registration for AACR Members, the Cancer Community, and the Public
This virtual meeting will feature more than 120 sessions and 4,000 e-posters, including sessions on cancer health disparities and the impact of COVID-19 on clinical trials

 

This Virtual Meeting is Part II of the AACR Annual Meeting.  Part I was held online in April and was centered only on clinical findings.  This Part II of the virtual meeting will contain all the Sessions and Abstracts pertaining to basic and translational cancer research as well as clinical trial findings.

 

REGISTER NOW

 

Monday, June 22

8:30 AM – 10:10 AM EDT

Virtual Special Session

Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony will include the following presentations:
Welcome from AACR CEO Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc)

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

MARGARET FOTI, PHD, MD (HC)

​American Association for Cancer Research
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  • Dr. Foti mentions that AACR is making progress in including more ethnic and gender equality in cancer research and she feels that the disparities seen in health care, and in cancer care, is related to the disparities seen in the cancer research profession
  • AACR is very focused now on blood cancers and creating innovation summits on this matter
  • In 2019 awarded over 60 grants but feel they will be able to fund more research in 2020
  • Government funding is insufficient at current levels

Remarks from AACR Immediate Past President Elaine R. Mardis, PhD, FAACR

  • involved in planning and success of the first virtual meeting (it was really well done)
  • # of registrants was at unprecedented numbers
  • the scope for this meeting will be wider than the first meeting
  • they have included special sessions including COVID19 and health disparities
  • 70 educational and methodology workshops on over 70 channels

AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research

  • Dr. Philip Sharp is awardee of Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Dr. Sharp is known for his work in RNA splicing and development of multiple cancer models including a mouse CRSPR model
  • worked under Jim Watson at Cold Spring Harbor
    Presentation of New Fellows of the AACR Academy
  • Dr. Radcliffe for hypoxic factors
  • CART therapies
  • Dr. Semenza for HIF1 discovery
  • Dr Swanton for stratification of patients and tumor heterogeneity
  • these are just some of the new fellows

AACR-Biedler Prizes for Cancer Journalism

  • Writer of Article War of Nerves awarded; reported on nerve intervation of tumors
  • writer Budman on reporting and curation of hedgehog inhibitors in cancers
  • patient advocacy book was awarded for journalism
  • cancer survivor Kasie Newsome produced multiple segments on personalized cancer therapy from a cancer survivor perspective

Remarks from Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi

  • helped secure a doubling of funding for NCI and NIH in the 90s
  • securing COVID funding to offset some of the productivity issues related to the shutdown due to COVID
  • advocating for more work to alleviate health disparities

 

Remarks from United States Senator Roy Blunt

  • tireless champion in the Senate for cancer research funding; he was a cancer survivor himself
  • we need to keep focus on advances in science

Margaret Foti

DETAILS

Monday, June 22

10:10 AM – 12:30 PM EDT

Virtual Plenary Session

Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Epidemiology, Immunology, Molecular and Cellular Biology/Genetics

Opening Plenary Session: Turning Science into Lifesaving Care

Alexander Marson, Antoni Ribas, Ashani T Weeraratna, Olivier Elemento, Howard Y Chang, Daniel D. De Carvalho

DETAILS

Monday, June 22

12:45 PM – 1:30 PM EDT

Awards and Lectures

How should we think about exceptional and super responders to cancer therapy? What biologic insights might ensue from considering these cases? What are ways in which considering super responders may lead to misleading conclusions? What are the pros and cons of the quest to locate exceptional and super responders?

Alice P Chen, Vinay K Prasad, Celeste Leigh Pearce

DETAILS

Monday, June 22

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Virtual Educational Session

Tumor Biology, Immunology

Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics, Immunology

Other Articles on this Open Access  Online Journal on Cancer Conferences and Conference Coverage in Real Time Include

Press Coverage

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon Part 3 12:30-1:25 PM

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Session on NCI Activities: COVID-19 and Cancer Research 5:20 PM

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Session on Evaluating Cancer Genomics from Normal Tissues Through Metastatic Disease 3:50 PM

Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 28, 2020 Session on Novel Targets and Therapies 2:35 PM

 

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Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 27, 2020 Minisymposium on AACR Project Genie & Bioinformatics 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

SESSION VMS.MD01.01 – Advancing Cancer Research through an International Cancer Registry: AACR Project GENIE Use Cases
 
Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

April 27, 2020, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Virtual Meeting: All Session Times Are U.S. EDT

Session Type
Virtual Minisymposium
Track(s)
Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
17 Presentations
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
– Chairperson Gregory J. Riely. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

4:00 PM – 4:01 PM
– Introduction Gregory J. Riely. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

Precision medicine requires an end-to-end learning healthcare system, wherein the treatment decisions for patients are informed by the prior experiences of similar patients. Oncology is currently leading the way in precision medicine because the genomic and other molecular characteristics of patients and their tumors are routinely collected at scale. A major challenge to realizing the promise of precision medicine is that no single institution is able to sequence and treat sufficient numbers of patients to improve clinical-decision making independently. To overcome this challenge, the AACR launched Project GENIE (Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange).

AACR Project GENIE is a publicly accessible international cancer registry of real-world data assembled through data sharing between 19 of the leading cancer centers in the world. Through the efforts of strategic partners Sage Bionetworks (https://sagebionetworks.org) and cBioPortal (www.cbioportal.org), the registry aggregates, harmonizes, and links clinical-grade, next-generation cancer genomic sequencing data with clinical outcomes obtained during routine medical practice from cancer patients treated at these institutions. The consortium and its activities are driven by openness, transparency, and inclusion, ensuring that the project output remains accessible to the global cancer research community for the benefit of all patients.AACR Project GENIE fulfills an unmet need in oncology by providing the statistical power necessary to improve clinical decision-making, particularly in the case of rare cancers and rare variants in common cancers. Additionally, the registry can power novel clinical and translational research.

Because we collect data from nearly every patient sequenced at participating institutions and have committed to sharing only clinical-grade data, the GENIE registry contains enough high-quality data to power decision making on rare cancers or rare variants in common cancers. We see the GENIE data providing another knowledge turn in the virtuous cycle of research, accelerating the pace of drug discovery, improving the clinical trial design, and ultimately benefiting cancer patients globally.

 

The first set of cancer genomic data aggregated through AACR Project Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange (GENIE) was available to the global community in January 2017.  The seventh data set, GENIE 7.0-public, was released in January 2020 adding more than 9,000 records to the database. The combined data set now includes nearly 80,000 de-identified genomic records collected from patients who were treated at each of the consortium’s participating institutions, making it among the largest fully public cancer genomic data sets released to date.  These data will be released to the public every six months. The public release of the eighth data set, GENIE 8.0-public, will take place in July 2020.

The combined data set now includes data for over 80 major cancer types, including data from greater than 12,500 patients with lung cancer, nearly 11,000 patients with breast cancer, and nearly 8,000 patients with colorectal cancer.

For more details about the data, analyses, and summaries of the data attributes from this release, GENIE 7.0-public, consult the data guide.

Users can access the data directly via cbioportal, or download the data directly from Sage Bionetworks. Users will need to create an account for either site and agree to the terms of access.

For frequently asked questions, visit our FAQ page.

  • In fall of 2019 AACR announced the Bio Collaborative which collected pan cancer data in conjuction and collaboration and support by a host of big pharma and biotech companies
  • they have a goal to expand to more than 6 cancer types and more than 50,000 records including smoking habits, lifestyle data etc
  • They have started with NSCLC have have done mutational analysis on these
  • included is tumor mutational burden and using cbioportal able to explore genomic data even further
  • treatment data is included as well
  • need to collect highly CURATED data with PRISM backbone to get more than outcome data, like progression data
  • they might look to incorporate digital pathology but they are not there yet; will need good artificial intelligence systems

 

4:01 PM – 4:15 PM
– Invited Speaker Gregory J. Riely. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

4:15 PM – 4:20 PM
– Discussion

4:20 PM – 4:30 PM
1092 – A systematic analysis of BRAF mutations and their sensitivity to different BRAF inhibitors: Zohar Barbash, Dikla Haham, Liat Hafzadi, Ron Zipor, Shaul Barth, Arie Aizenman, Lior Zimmerman, Gabi Tarcic. Novellusdx, Jerusalem, Israel

Abstract: The MAPK-ERK signaling cascade is among the most frequently mutated pathways in human cancer, with the BRAF V600 mutation being the most common alteration. FDA-approved BRAF inhibitors as well as combination therapies of BRAF and MEK inhibitors are available and provide survival benefits to patients with a BRAF V600 mutation in several indications. Yet non-V600 BRAF mutations are found in many cancers and are even more prevalent than V600 mutations in certain tumor types. As the use of NGS profiling in precision oncology is becoming more common, novel alterations in BRAF are being uncovered. This has led to the classification of BRAF mutations, which is dependent on its biochemical properties and affects it sensitivity to inhibitors. Therefore, annotation of these novel variants is crucial for assigning correct treatment. Using a high throughput method for functional annotation of MAPK activity, we profiled 151 different BRAF mutations identified in the AACR Project GENIE dataset, and their response to 4 different BRAF inhibitors- vemurafenib and 3 different exploratory 2nd generation inhibitors. The system is based on rapid synthesis of the mutations and expression of the mutated protein together with fluorescently labeled reporters in a cell-based assay. Our results show that from the 151 different BRAF mutations, ~25% were found to activate the MAPK pathway. All of the class 1 and 2 mutations tested were found to be active, providing positive validation for the method. Additionally, many novel activating mutations were identified, some outside of the known domains. When testing the response of the active mutations to different classes of BRAF inhibitors, we show that while vemurafenib efficiently inhibited V600 mutations, other types of mutations and specifically BRAF fusions were not inhibited by this drug. Alternatively, the second-generation experimental inhibitors were effective against both V600 as well as non-V600 mutations. Using this large-scale approach to characterize BRAF mutations, we were able to functionally annotate the largest number of BRAF mutations to date. Our results show that the number of activating variants is large and that they possess differential sensitivity to different types of direct inhibitors. This data can serve as a basis for rational drug design as well as more accurate treatment options for patients.

  • Molecular profiling is becoming imperative for successful  targeted therapies
  • 500 unique mutations in BRAF so need to use bioinformatic pipeline; start with NGS panels then cluster according to different subtypes or class specific patterns
  • certain mutation like V600E mutations have distinct clustering in tumor types
  • 25% of mutations occur with other mutations; mutations may not be functional; they used highthruput system to analyze other V600 braf mutations to determine if functional
  • active yet uncharacterized BRAF mutations seen in a major proportion of human tumors
  • using genomic drug data found that many inhibitors like verafanib are specific to a specific mutation but other inhibitors that are not specific to a cleft can inhibit other BRAF mutants
  • 40% of 135 mutants were functionally active
  • USE of Functional Profiling instead of just genomic profiling
  • Q?: They have already used this platform and analysis for RTKs and other genes as well successfully
  • Q? how do you deal with co reccuring mutations: platform is able to do RTK plus signaling protiens

4:30 PM – 4:35 PM
– Discussion

4:35 PM – 4:45 PM
1093 – Calibration Tool for Genomic Aggregates (CTGA): A deep learning framework for calibrating somatic mutation profiling data from conventional gene panel data. Jordan Anaya, Craig Cummings, Jocelyn Lee, Alexander Baras. Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, MD, Genentech, Inc., CA, AACR, Philadelphia, PA

Abstract: It has been suggested that aggregate genomic measures such as mutational burden can be associated with response to immunotherapy. Arguably, the gold standard for deriving such aggregate genomic measures (AGMs) would be from exome level sequencing. While many clinical trials run exome level sequencing, the vast majority of routine genomic testing performed today, as seen in AACR Project GENIE, is targeted / gene-panel based sequencing.
Despite the smaller size of these gene panels focused on clinically targetable alterations, it has been shown they can estimate, to some degree, exomic mutational burden; usually by normalizing mutation count by the relevant size of the panels. These smaller gene panels exhibit significant variability both in terms of accuracy relative to exomic measures and in comparison to other gene panels. While many genes are common to the panels in AACR Project GENIE, hundreds are not. These differences in extent of coverage and genomic loci examined can result in biases that may negatively impact panel to panel comparability.
To address these issues we developed a deep learning framework to model exomic AGMs, such as mutational burden, from gene panel data as seen in AACR Project GENIE. This framework can leverage any available sample and variant level information, in which variants are featurized to effectively re-weight their importance when estimating a given AGM, such as mutational burden, through the use of multiple instance learning techniques in this form of weakly supervised data.
Using TCGA data in conjunction with AACR Project GENIE gene panel definitions, as a proof of concept, we first applied this framework to learn expected variant features such as codons and genomic position from mutational data (greater than 99.9% accuracy observed). Having established the validity of the approach, we then applied this framework to somatic mutation profiling data in which we show that data from gene panels can be calibrated to exomic TMB and thereby improve panel to panel compatibility. We observed approximately 25% improvements in mean squared error and R-squared metrics when using our framework over conventional approaches to estimate TMB from gene panel data across the 9 tumors types examined (spanning melanoma, lung cancer, colon cancer, and others). This work highlights the application of sophisticated machine learning approaches towards the development of needed calibration techniques across seemingly disparate gene panel assays used clinically today.

 

4:45 PM – 4:50 PM
– Discussion

4:50 PM – 5:00 PM
1094 – Genetic determinants of EGFR-driven lung cancer growth and therapeutic response in vivoGiorgia Foggetti, Chuan Li, Hongchen Cai, Wen-Yang Lin, Deborah Ayeni, Katherine Hastings, Laura Andrejka, Dylan Maghini, Robert Homer, Dmitri A. Petrov, Monte M. Winslow, Katerina Politi. Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT

5:00 PM – 5:05 PM
– Discussion

5:05 PM – 5:15 PM
1095 – Comprehensive pan-cancer analyses of RAS genomic diversityRobert Scharpf, Gregory Riely, Mark Awad, Michele Lenoue-Newton, Biagio Ricciuti, Julia Rudolph, Leon Raskin, Andrew Park, Jocelyn Lee, Christine Lovly, Valsamo Anagnostou. Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, TN, Amgen, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA, AACR, Philadelphia, PA

5:15 PM – 5:20 PM
– Discussion

5:20 PM – 5:30 PM
1096 – Harmonization standards from the Variant Interpretation for Cancer Consortium. Alex H. Wagner, Reece K. Hart, Larry Babb, Robert R. Freimuth, Adam Coffman, Yonghao Liang, Beth Pitel, Angshumoy Roy, Matthew Brush, Jennifer Lee, Anna Lu, Thomas Coard, Shruti Rao, Deborah Ritter, Brian Walsh, Susan Mockus, Peter Horak, Ian King, Dmitriy Sonkin, Subha Madhavan, Gordana Raca, Debyani Chakravarty, Malachi Griffith, Obi L. Griffith. Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO, Reece Hart Consulting, CA, Broad Institute, Boston, MA, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT, National Center for Tumor Diseases, Heidelberg, Germany, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

Abstract: The use of clinical gene sequencing is now commonplace, and genome analysts and molecular pathologists are often tasked with the labor-intensive process of interpreting the clinical significance of large numbers of tumor variants. Numerous independent knowledge bases have been constructed to alleviate this manual burden, however these knowledgebases are non-interoperable. As a result, the analyst is left with a difficult tradeoff: for each knowledgebase used the analyst must understand the nuances particular to that resource and integrate its evidence accordingly when generating the clinical report, but for each knowledgebase omitted there is increased potential for missed findings of clinical significance.The Variant Interpretation for Cancer Consortium (VICC; cancervariants.org) was formed as a driver project of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH; ga4gh.org) to address this concern. VICC members include representatives from several major somatic interpretation knowledgebases including CIViC, OncoKB, Jax-CKB, the Weill Cornell PMKB, the IRB-Barcelona Cancer Biomarkers Database, and others. Previously, the VICC built and reported on a harmonized meta-knowledgebase of 19,551 biomarker associations of harmonized variants, diseases, drugs, and evidence across the constituent resources.In that study, we analyzed the frequency with which the tumor samples from the AACR Project GENIE cohort would match to harmonized associations. Variant matches increased dramatically from 57% to 86% when broader matching to regions describing categorical variants were allowed. Unlike precise sequence variants with specified alternate alleles, categorical variants describe a collection of potential variants with a common feature, such as “V600” (non-valine alleles at the 600 residue), “Exon 20 mutations” (all non-silent mutations in exon 20), or “Gain-of-function” (hypermorphic alterations that activate or amplify gene activity). However, matching observed sequence variants to categorical variants is challenging, as the latter are typically only described as unstructured text. Here we describe the expressive and computational GA4GH Variation Representation specification (vr-spec.readthedocs.io), which we co-developed as members of the GA4GH Genomic Knowledge Standards work stream. This specification provides a schema for common, precise forms of variation (e.g. SNVs and Indels) and the method for computing identifiers from these objects. We highlight key aspects of the specification and our work to apply it to the characterization of categorical variation, showcasing the variant terminology and classification tools developed by the VICC to support this effort. These standards and tools are free, open-source, and extensible, overcoming barriers to standardized variant knowledge sharing and search.

https://cancervariants.org/

  • store information from different databases by curating them and classifying them then harmonizing them into values
  • harmonize each variant across their knowledgebase; at any level of evidence
  • had 29% of patients variants that matched when compare across many knowledgebase databases versus only 13% when using individual databases
  • they are also trying to curate the database so a variant will have one code instead of various refseq codes or protein codes
  • VIC is an open consortium

 

 

5:30 PM – 5:35 PM
– Discussion

5:35 PM – 5:45 PM
1097 – FGFR2 in-frame indels: A novel targetable alteration in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Yvonne Y. Li, James M. Cleary, Srivatsan Raghavan, Liam F. Spurr, Qibiao Wu, Lei Shi, Lauren K. Brais, Maureen Loftus, Lipika Goyal, Anuj K. Patel, Atul B. Shinagare, Thomas E. Clancy, Geoffrey Shapiro, Ethan Cerami, William R. Sellers, William C. Hahn, Matthew Meyerson, Nabeel Bardeesy, Andrew D. Cherniack, Brian M. Wolpin. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

5:45 PM – 5:50 PM
– Discussion

5:50 PM – 6:00 PM
– Closing RemarksGregory J. Riely. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

 

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Live Notes, Real Time Conference Coverage 2020 AACR Virtual Meeting April 27, 2020 Minisymposium on Signaling in Cancer 11:45am-1:30 pm

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD.

SESSION VMS.MCB01.01 – Emerging Signaling Vulnerabilities in Cancer
April 27, 2020, 11:45 AM – 1:30 PM
Virtual Meeting: All Session Times Are U.S. EDT
DESCRIPTION

All session times are U.S. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Access to AACR Virtual Annual Meeting I sessions are free with registration. Register now at http://www.aacr.org/virtualam2020

Session Type

Virtual Minisymposium

Track(s)

Molecular and Cellular Biology/Genetics

16 Presentations
11:45 AM – 1:30 PM
– Chairperson

J. Silvio Gutkind. UCSD Moores Cancer Center, La Jolla, CA

11:45 AM – 1:30 PM
– Chairperson

  • in 80’s and 90’s signaling focused on defects and also oncogene addiction.  Now the field is switching to finding vulnerabilities in signaling cascades in cancer

Adrienne D. Cox. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

11:45 AM – 11:55 AM
– Introduction

J. Silvio Gutkind. UCSD Moores Cancer Center, La Jolla, CA

11:55 AM – 12:05 PM
1085 – Interrogating the RAS interactome identifies EFR3A as a novel enhancer of RAS oncogenesis

Hema Adhikari, Walaa Kattan, John F. Hancock, Christopher M. Counter. Duke University, Durham, NC, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX

Abstract: Activating mutations in one of the three RAS genes (HRAS, NRAS, and KRAS) are detected in as much as a third of all human cancers. As oncogenic RAS mediates it tumorigenic signaling through protein-protein interactions primarily at the plasma membrane, we sought to document the protein networks engaged by each RAS isoform to identify new vulnerabilities for future therapeutic development. To this end, we determined interactomes of oncogenic HRAS, NRAS, and KRAS by BirA-mediated proximity labeling. This analysis identified roughly ** proteins shared among multiple interactomes, as well as a smaller subset unique to a single RAS oncoprotein. To identify those interactome components promoting RAS oncogenesis, we created and screened sgRNA library targeting the interactomes for genes modifying oncogenic HRAS-, NRAS-, or KRAS-mediated transformation. This analysis identified the protein EFR3A as not only a common component of all three RAS interactomes, but when inactivated, uniformly reduced the growth of cells transformed by any of the three RAS isoforms. EFR3A recruits a complex containing the druggable phosphatidylinositol (Ptdlns) 4 kinase alpha (PI4KA) to the plasma membrane to generate the Ptdlns species PI4P. We show that EFR3A sgRNA reduced multiple RAS effector signaling pathways, suggesting that EFR3A acts at the level of the oncoprotein itself. As lipids play a critical role in the membrane localization of RAS, we tested and found that EFR3A sgRNA reduced not only the occupancy of RAS at the plasma membrane, but also the nanoclustering necessary for signaling. Furthermore, the loss of oncogenic RAS signaling induced by EFR3A sgRNA was rescued by targeting PI4K to the plasma membrane. Taken together, these data support a model whereby EFR3A recruits PI4K to oncogenic RAS to promote plasma membrane localization and nonclustering, and in turn, signaling and transformation. To investigate the therapeutic potential of this new RAS enhancer, we show that EFR3A sgRNA reduced oncogenic KRAS signaling and transformed growth in a panel of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cell lines. Encouraged by these results we are exploring whether genetically inactivating the kinase activity of PI4KA inhibits oncogenic signaling and transformation in PDAC cell lines. If true, pharmacologically targeting PI4K may hold promise as a way to enhance the anti-neoplastic activity of drugs targeting oncogenic RAS or its effectors.

@DukeU

@DukeMedSchool

@MDAndersonNews

  • different isoforms of ras mutations exist differentially in various tumor types e.g. nras vs kras
  • the C terminal end serve as hotspots of mutations and probably isoform specific functions
  • they determined the interactomes of nras and kras and determined how many candidates are ras specific
  • they overlayed results from proteomic and CRSPR screen; EFR3a was a potential target that stuck out
  • using TCGA patients with higher EFR3a had poorer prognosis
  • EFR3a promotes Ras signaling; and required for RAS driven tumor growth (in RAS addicted tumors?)
  • EGFR3a promotes clustering of oncogenic RAS at plasma membrane

 

12:05 PM – 12:10 PM
– Discussion

12:10 PM – 12:20 PM
1086 – Downstream kinase signaling is dictated by specific KRAS mutations; Konstantin Budagyan, Jonathan Chernoff. Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA @FoxChaseCancer

Abstract: Oncogenic KRAS mutations are common in colorectal cancer (CRC), found in ~50% of tumors, and are associated with poor prognosis and resistance to therapy. There is substantial diversity of KRAS alleles observed in CRC. Importantly, emerging clinical and experimental analysis of relatively common KRAS mutations at amino acids G12, G13, A146, and Q61 suggest that each mutation differently influences the clinical properties of a disease and response to therapy. For example, KRAS G12 mutations confer resistance to EGFR-targeted therapy, while G13D mutations do not. Although there is clinical evidence to suggest biological differences between mutant KRAS alleles, it is not yet known what drives these differences and whether they can be exploited for allele-specific therapy. We hypothesized that different KRAS mutants elicit variable alterations in downstream signaling pathways. To investigate this hypothesis, we created a novel system by which we can model KRAS mutants in isogenic mouse colon epithelial cell lines. To generate the cell lines, we developed an assay using fluorescent co-selection for CRISPR-driven genome editing. This assay involves simultaneous introduction of single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) to two different endogenous loci resulting in double-editing events. We first introduced Cas9 and blue fluorescent protein (BFP) into mouse colon epithelial cell line containing heterozygous KRAS G12D mutation. We then used sgRNAs targeting BFP and the mutant G12D KRAS allele along with homology-directed repair (HDR) templates for a GFP gene and a KRAS mutant allele of our choice. Cells that successfully undergo HDR are GFP-positive and contain the desired KRAS mutation. Therefore, selection for GFP-positive cells allows us to identify those with phenotypically silent KRAS edits. Ultimately, this method allows us to toggle between different mutant alleles while preserving the wild-type allele, all in an isogenic background. Using this method, we have generated cell lines with endogenous heterozygous KRAS mutations commonly seen in CRC (G12D, G12V, G12C, G12R, G13D). In order to elucidate cellular signaling pathway differences between the KRAS mutants, we screened the mutated cell lines using a small-molecule library of ~160 protein kinase inhibitors. We found that there are mutation-specific differences in drug sensitivity profiles. These observations suggest that KRAS mutants drive specific cellular signaling pathways, and that further exploration of these pathways may prove to be valuable for identification of novel therapeutic opportunities in CRC.

  • Flourescent coselection of KRAS edits by CRSPR screen in a colorectal cancer line; a cell that is competent to undergo HR can undergo combination multiple KRAS
  • target only mutant allele while leaving wild type intact;
  • it was KRAS editing event in APC  +/- mouse cell line
  • this enabled a screen for kinase inhibitors that decreased tumor growth in isogenic cell lines; PKC alpha and beta 1 inhibitors, also CDK4 inhibitors inhibited cell growth
  • questions about heterogeneity in KRAS clones; they looked at off target guides and looked at effects in screens; then they used top two clones that did not have off target;  questions about 3D culture- they have not done that; Question ? dependency on AKT activity? perhaps the G12E has different downstream effectors

 

12:20 PM – 12:25 PM
– Discussion

12:25 PM – 12:35 PM
1087 – NF1 regulates the RAS-related GTPases, RRAS and RRAS2, independent of RAS activity; Jillian M. Silva, Lizzeth Canche, Frank McCormick. University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA @UCSFMedicine

Abstract: Neurofibromin, which is encoded by the neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) gene, is a tumor suppressor that acts as a RAS-GTPase activating protein (RAS-GAP) to stimulate the intrinsic GTPase activity of RAS as well as the closely related RAS subfamily members, RRAS, RRAS2, and MRAS. This results in the conversion of the active GTP-bound form of RAS into the inactive GDP-bound state leading to the downregulation of several RAS downstream effector pathways, most notably MAPK signaling. While the region of NF1 that regulates RAS activity represents only a small fraction of the entire protein, a large extent of the NF1 structural domains and their corresponding mechanistic functions remain uncharacterized despite the fact there is a high frequency of NF1 mutations in several different types of cancer. Thus, we wanted to elucidate the underlying biochemical and signaling functions of NF1 that are unrelated to the regulation of RAS and how loss of these functions contributes to the pathogenesis of cancer. To accomplish this objective, we used CRISPR-Cas9 methods to knockout NF1 in an isogenic “RASless” MEF model system, which is devoid of the major oncogenic RAS isoforms (HRAS, KRAS, and NRAS) and reconstituted with the KRAS4b wild-type or mutant KRASG12C or KRASG12D isoform. Loss of NF1 led to elevated RAS-GTP levels, however, this increase was not as profound as the levels in KRAS-mutated cells or provided a proliferative advantage. Although ablation of NF1 resulted in sustained activation of MAPK signaling, it also unexpectedly, resulted in a robust increase in AKT phosphorylation compared to KRAS-mutated cells. Surprisingly, loss of NF1 in KRAS4b wild-type and KRAS-mutated cells potently suppressed the RAS-related GTPases, RRAS and RRAS2, with modest effects on MRAS, at both the transcript and protein levels. A Clariom™D transcriptome microarray analysis revealed a significant downregulation in the NF-κB target genes, insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 (IGFBP2), argininosuccinate synthetase 1 (ASS1), and DUSP1, in both the NF1 knockout KRAS4b wild-type and KRAS-mutated cells. Moreover, NF1Null melanoma cells also displayed a potent suppression of RRAS and RRAS2 as well as these NF-κB transcription factors. Since RRAS and RRAS2 both contain the same NF-κB transcription factor binding sites, we hypothesize that IGFBP2, ASS1, and/or DUSP1 may contribute to the NF1-mediated regulation of these RAS-related GTPases. More importantly, this study provides the first evidence of at least one novel RAS-independent function of NF1 to regulate the RAS-related subfamily members, RRAS and RRAS2, in a manner exclusive of its RAS-GTPase activity and this may provide insight into new potential biomarkers and molecular targets for treating patients with mutations in NF1.
  • NF1 and SPRED work together to signal from RTK cKIT through RAS
  • NF1 knockout cells had higher KRAS and had increased cell proliferation
  • NF1 -/-  or SPRED loss had increased ERK phosphorylation and some increase in AKT activity compared to parental cells
  • they used isogenic cell lines devoid of all RAS isoforms and then reconstituted with specific RAS WT or mutants
  • NF1 and SPRED KO both reduce RRAS expression; in an AKT independent mannner
  • NF1 SPRED KO cells have almost no IGFBP2 protein expression and SNAIL so maybe affecting EMT?
  • this effect is independent of its RAS GTPAse activity (noncanonical)

12:35 PM – 12:40 PM
– Discussion

12:40 PM – 12:50 PM
1088 – Elucidating the regulation of delayed-early gene targets of sustained MAPK signaling; Kali J. Dale, Martin McMahon. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, UT

Abstract: RAS and its downstream effector, BRAF, are commonly mutated proto-oncogenes in many types of human cancer. Mutationally activated RAS or BRAF signal through the MEK→ERK MAP kinase (MAPK) pathway to regulate key cancer cell hallmarks such as cell division cycle progression, reduced programmed cell death, and enhanced cell motility. Amongst the list of RAS/RAF-regulated genes are those encoding integrins, alpha-beta heterodimeric transmembrane proteins that regulate cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix. Altered integrin expression has been linked to the acquisition of more aggressive behavior by melanoma, lung, and breast cancer cells leading to diminished survival of cancer patients. We have previously documented the ability of the RAS-activated MAPK pathway to induce the expression of ITGB3 encoding integrin β3 in several different cell types. RAS/RAF-mediated induction of ITGB3 mRNA requires sustained, high-level activation of RAF→MEK→ERK signaling mediated by oncogene activation and is classified as “delayed-early”, in that it is sensitive to the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide. However, to date, the regulatory mechanisms that allow for induced ITGB3 downstream of sustained, high-level activation of MAPK signaling remains obscure. We have identified over 300 DEGs, including those expressing additional cell surface proteins, that display similar regulatory characteristics as ITGB3. We use integrin β3 as a model to test our hypothesis that there is a different mechanism of regulation for delayed-early genes (DEG) compared to the canonical regulation of Immediate-Early genes. There are three regions in the chromatin upstream of the ITGB3 that become more accessible during RAF activation. We are relating the chromatin changes seen during RAF activation to active enhancer histone marks. To elucidate the essential genes of this regulation process, we are employing the use of a genome-wide CRISPR knockout screen. The work presented from this abstract will help elucidate the regulatory properties of oncogenic progression in BRAF mutated cancers that could lead to the identification of biomarkers.

12:50 PM – 12:55 PM
– Discussion

12:55 PM – 1:05 PM
1090 – Regulation of PTEN translation by PI3K signaling maintains pathway homeostasis

Radha Mukherjee, Kiran Gireesan Vanaja, Jacob A. Boyer, Juan Qiu, Xiaoping Chen, Elisa De Stanchina, Sarat Chandarlapaty, Andre Levchenko, Neal Rosen. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, Yale University, West Haven, CT, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY @sloan_kettering

Abstract: The PI3K pathway is a key regulator of metabolism, cell proliferation and migration and some of its components (e.g. PIK3CA and PTEN) are frequently altered in cancer by genetic events that deregulate its output. However, PI3K signaling is not usually the primary driver of these tumors and inhibitors of components of the pathway have only modest antitumor effects. We now show that both physiologic and oncogenic activation of the PI3K signaling by growth factors and an activating hotspot PIK3CA mutation respectively, cause an increase in the expression of the lipid phosphatase PTEN, thus limiting the duration of the signal and the output of the pathway in tumors. Pharmacologic and physiologic inhibition of the pathway by HER2/PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibitors and nutrient starvation respectively reduce PTEN, thus buffering the effects of inhibition and contributing to the rebound in pathway activity that occurs in tumors. This regulation is found to be a feature of multiple types of cancer, non-cancer cell line and PDX models thereby highlighting its role as a key conserved feedback loop within the PI3K signaling network, both in vitro and in vivo. Regulation of expression is due to mTOR/4EBP1 dependent control of PTEN translation and is lost when 4EBP1 is knocked out. Translational regulation of PTEN is therefore a major homeostatic regulator of physiologic PI3K signaling and plays a role in reducing the output of oncogenic mutants that deregulate the pathway and the antitumor activity of PI3K pathway inhibitors.

  • mTOR can be a potent regulator of PTEN and therefore a major issue when developing PI3K inhibitors

1:05 PM – 1:10 PM
– Discussion

1:10 PM – 1:20 PM
1091 – BI-3406 and BI 1701963: Potent and selective SOS1::KRAS inhibitors induce regressions in combination with MEK inhibitors or irinotecan

Daniel Gerlach, Michael Gmachl, Juergen Ramharter, Jessica Teh, Szu-Chin Fu, Francesca Trapani, Dirk Kessler, Klaus Rumpel, Dana-Adriana Botesteanu, Peter Ettmayer, Heribert Arnhof, Thomas Gerstberger, Christiane Kofink, Tobias Wunberg, Christopher P. Vellano, Timothy P. Heffernan, Joseph R. Marszalek, Mark Pearson, Darryl B. McConnell, Norbert Kraut, Marco H. Hofmann. Boehringer Ingelheim RCV GmbH & Co KG, Vienna, Austria, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, Boehringer Ingelheim RCV GmbH & Co KG, Vienna, Austria

  • there is rational for developing an SOS1 inhibitor (GEF); BI3406 shows better PK and PD as a candidate
  • most sensitive cell lines to inhibitor carry KRAS mutation; NRAS or BRAF mutations are not sensititve
  • KRAS mutation defines sensitivity so they created KRAS mut isogenic cell lines
  • found best to co inhibit SOS and MEK as observed plasticity with only SOS
  • dual combination in lung NSCLC pancreatic showed enhanced efficacy compared to monotherapy
  • SOS1 inhibition plus irinotecan enhances DNA double strand breaks; no increased DNA damage in normal stroma but preferentially in tumor cells
  • these SOS1 had broad activity against KRAS mutant models;
  • phase 1 started in 2019;

@Boehringer

1:20 PM – 1:25 PM
– Discussion

1:25 PM – 1:30 PM
– Closing Remarks

Adrienne D. Cox. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

Follow on Twitter at:

@pharma_BI

@AACR

@GenomeInstitute

@CureCancerNow

@UCLAJCCC

#AACR20

#AACR2020

#curecancernow

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Live Conference Coverage of AACR 2020 Annual Virtual Meeting; April 27-28, 2020

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will hold its Annual Meeting as a Virtual Online Format.  Registration is free and open to all, including non members.  Please go to

https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-annual-meeting-2020/aacr-virtual-annual-meeting-i/?utm_source=Salesforce%20Marketing%20Cloud&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=&sfmc_s=0031I00000WsBJxQAN

to register for this two day meeting.  Another two day session will be held in June 2020 and will focus more on basic cancer research.

Please follow @pharma_BI who will be live Tweeting Real Time Notes from this meeting using the hashtag

#AACR20

And @StephenJWillia2

The following is a brief summary of the schedule.  Please register and go to AACR for detailed information on individual sessions.

 

AACR VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING I: SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

AACR Virtual Annual Meeting I is available free Register Now

VIRTUAL MEETING I: BROWSER REQUIREMENTS AND ACCESSVIRTUAL MEETING I: FAQVIRTUAL MEETING I: MEETING PLANNER (ABSTRACT TITLES)

Presentation titles are available through the online meeting planner. The program also includes six virtual poster sessions consisting of brief slide videos. Poster sessions will not be presented live but will be available for viewing on demand. Poster session topics are as follows:

  • Phase I Clinical Trials
  • Phase II Clinical Trials
  • Phase III Clinical Trials
  • Phase I Trials in Progress
  • Phase II Trials in Progress
  • Phase III Trials in Progress

Schedule updated April 24, 2020

MONDAY, APRIL 27

Channel 1 Channel 2 Channel 3
9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m.
Opening Session
_______________________
9:30 a.m.-11:40 a.m.
Opening Clinical Plenary
_______________________
11:40 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Immunotherapy Clinical Trials 1
_______________________
___ 11:45 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Minisymposium: Emerging Signaling Vulnerabilities in Cancer
_______________________
___ 11:45 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Minisymposium: Advances in Cancer Drug Design and Discovery
__________________________
2:00 p.m.-4:50 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Lung Cancer Targeted Therapy
_______________________
___ 1:55 p.m.-4:15 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Breast Cancer Therapy
_______________________
___ 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
Minisymposium: Drugging Undrugged Cancer Targets
__________________________
4:50 p.m.-6:05 p.m.
Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon 1_______________________
___ 4:50 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
Minisymposium: Therapeutic Modification of the Tumor Microenvironment or Microbiome
_______________________
___ 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
Minisymposium: Advancing Cancer Research Through An International Cancer Registry: AACR Project GENIE Use Cases__________________________

All session times are EDT.

TUESDAY, APRIL 28

Channel 1 Channel 2 Channel 3
9:00 a.m.-101:00 a.m.
Clinical Plenary: COVID-19 and Cancer
__________________________
11:00 a.m.-1:35 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Adoptive Cell Transfer Therapy__________________________
___ 10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon 2_________________________
___ 10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Minisymposium: Translational Prevention Studies
______________________
___ 12:30 p.m.-1:25 p.m.
Symposium: New Drugs on the Horizon 3
_________________________
___ 12:30 p.m.-2:15 p.m.
Minisymposium: Non-coding RNAs in Cancer
______________________
1:35 p.m.-3:35 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Early Detection and ctDNA__________________________
___ 1:30 p.m.-3:50 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Immunotherapy Clinical
Trials 2
_________________________
___ 2:15 p.m.-3:45 p.m.
Minisymposium: Novel Targets and Therapies______________________
3:35 p.m.-5:50 p.m.
Minisymposium: Predictive Biomarkers for Immunotherapeutics__________________________
___ 3:50 p.m.-5:35 p.m.
Minisymposium: Evaluating Cancer Genomics from Normal Tissues through Evolution to Metastatic Disease
_________________________
___ 4:00 p.m.-4:55 p.m.
Clinical Plenary: Targeted Therapy______________________
5:00 p.m.-5:45 p.m.
Symposium: NCI Activities– COVID-19 and Cancer Research
Dinah Singer, NCI
______________________
5:45 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
Closing Session
______________________

All session times are EDT.

 

 

 

Day

 

Session Type

Topic Tracks

For more on @pharma_BI and LPBI Group Conference Coverage in Real Time please go to

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

and

 

 

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Is It Time for the Virtual Scientific Conference?: Coronavirus, Travel Restrictions, Conferences Cancelled

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, PhD.

UPDATED 3/12/2020

To many of us scientists, presenting and attending scientific meetings, especially international scientific conferences, are a crucial tool for disseminating and learning new trends and cutting edge findings occurring in our respective fields.  Large international meetings, like cancer focused meetings like AACR (held in the spring time), AAAS and ASCO not only highlight the past years great discoveries but are usually the first place where breakthroughs are made known to the scientific/medical community as well as the public.  In addition these conferences allow for scientists to learn some of the newest technologies crucial for their work in vendor exhibitions.

During the coronavirus pandemic, multiple cancellations of business travel, conferences, and even university based study abroad programs are being cancelled and these cancellations are now hitting the 2020 Spring and potentially summer scientific/medical conferences.  Indeed one such conference hosted by Amgen in Massachusetts was determined as an event where some attendees tested positive for the virus, and as such, now other attendees are being asked to self quarantine.

Today I received two emails on conference cancellations, one from Experimental Biology in California and another from The Cancer Letter, highlighting other conferences, including National Cancer Coalition Network (NCCN) meetings which had been canceled.

 

Experimental Biology - San Diego 2020 - April 4-7

Dear Stephen,

After thoughtful deliberations, the leaders of the Experimental Biology host societies have made the difficult but necessary decision to cancel Experimental Biology (EB) 2020 set to take place April 4–7 in San Diego, California. We know how much EB means to everyone, and we did not make this decision in haste. The health and safety of our members, attendees, their students, our staff, partners and our communities are our top priority.

As we have previously communicated via email, on experimentalbiology.org and elsewhere, EB leadership has been closely monitoring the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease). Based on the latest guidance from public health officials, the travel bans implemented by different institutions and the state of emergency declared in California less than 48 hours ago, it became clear to us that canceling was the right course of action.

We thank you and the entire EB community for understanding the extreme difficulty of this decision and for your commitment to the success of this conference – from the thousands of attendees to the presenters, exhibitors and sponsors who shared their time, expertise, collaboration and leadership. We deeply appreciate your contributions to this community.

What Happens Next?

Everyone who has registered to attend the meeting will receive a full registration refund within the next 45 days. Once your registration cancellation is processed, you will receive confirmation in a separate email. You do not need to contact anyone at EB or your host society to initiate the process. Despite the cancellation of the meeting, we are pleased to tell you that we will publish abstracts in the April 2020 issue of The FASEB Journal as originally planned. Please remember to cancel any personal arrangements you’ve made, such as travel and housing reservations. 

We ask for patience as we evaluate our next steps, and we will alert you as additional information becomes available please see our FAQs for details.

And in The Cancer Letter

Coronavirus vs. oncology: Meeting cancellations, travel restrictions, fears about drug supply chain

By Alexandria Carolan

NOTE: An earlier version of this story was published March 4 on the web and was updated March 6 to include information about restricted travel for employees of cancer centers, meeting cancellations, potential disruptions to the drug supply chain, and funds allocated by U.S. Congress for combating the coronavirus.

Further updates will be posted as the story develops.

Forecasts of the inevitable spread of coronavirus can be difficult to ignore, especially at a time when many of us are making travel plans for this spring’s big cancer meetings.

The decision was made all the more difficult earlier this week, as cancer centers and at least one biotechnology company—Amgen—implemented travel bans that are expected to last through the end of March and beyond. The Cancer Letter was able to confirm such travel bans at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Meetings are getting cancelled in all fields, including oncology:

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network March 5 postponed its 2020 annual conference of about 1,500 attendees March 19-22 in Orlando, citing precautions against coronavirus.

“The health and safety of our attendees and the patients they take care of is our number one concern,” said Robert W. Carlson, chief executive officer of NCCN. “This was an incredibly difficult and disappointing decision to have to make. However, our conference attendees work to save the lives of immunocompromised people every day. Some of them are cancer survivors themselves, particularly at our patient advocacy pavilion. It’s our responsibility, in an abundance of caution, to safeguard them from any potential exposure to COVID-19.”

UPDATED 3/12/2020

And today the AACR canceled its yearly 2020 Meeting (https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-annual-meeting-2020/coronavirus-information/)

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Board of Directors has made the difficult decision, after careful consideration and comprehensive evaluation of currently available information related to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, to terminate the AACR Annual Meeting 2020, originally scheduled for April 24-29 in San Diego, California. A rescheduled meeting is being planned for later this year.

The AACR has been closely monitoring the rapidly increasing domestic and worldwide developments during the last several weeks related to COVID-19. This evidence-based decision was made after a thorough review and discussion of all factors impacting the Annual Meeting, including the U.S. government’s enforcement of restrictions on international travelers to enter the U.S.; the imposition of travel restrictions issued by U.S. government agencies, cancer centers, academic institutions, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies; and the counsel of infectious disease experts. It is clear that all of these elements significantly affect the ability of delegates, speakers, presenters of proffered papers, and exhibitors to participate fully in the Annual Meeting.

The health, safety, and security of all Annual Meeting attendees and the patients and communities they serve are the AACR’s highest priorities. While we believe that the decision to postpone the meeting is absolutely the correct one to safeguard our meeting participants from further potential exposure to the coronavirus, we also understand that this is a disappointing one for our stakeholders. There had been a great deal of excitement about the meeting, which was expected to be the largest ever AACR Annual Meeting, with more than 7,400 proffered papers, a projected total of 24,000 delegates from 80 countries and more than 500 exhibitors. We recognize that the presentation of new data, exchange of information, and opportunities for collaboration offered by the AACR Annual Meeting are highly valued by the entire cancer research community, and we are investigating options for rescheduling the Annual Meeting in the near future.

We thank all of our stakeholders for their patience and support at this time. Additional information regarding hotel reservation cancellations, registration refunds, and meeting logistics is available on the FAQ page on the AACR website. We will announce the dates and location of the rescheduled AACR Annual Meeting 2020 as soon as they are confirmed. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to everyone impacted by this global health crisis.

However,  according to both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Scott Gottlieb (former FDA director)  the outbreak may revisit the US and the world in the fall (see https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/were-losing-valuable-time-ex-fda-chief-says-of-coronavirus-spread.html)  therefore these meetings may be cancelled for the whole year.

Is It Time For the Virtual (Real-Time) Conference?

Readers of this Online Access Journal are familiar with our ongoing commitment to open science and believe that forming networks of scientific experts in various fields using a social strategy is pertinent to enhancing the speed, reproducibility and novelty of important future scientific/medical discoveries.  Some of these ideas are highlighted in the following articles found on this site:

Scientific Curation Fostering Expert Networks and Open Innovation: Lessons from Clive Thompson and others

Old Industrial Revolution Paradigm of Education Needs to End: How Scientific Curation Can Transform Education

Twitter is Becoming a Powerful Tool in Science and Medicine

e-Scientific Publishing: The Competitive Advantage of a Powerhouse for Curation of Scientific Findings and Methodology Development for e-Scientific Publishing – LPBI Group, A Case in Point

Reconstructed Science Communication for Open Access Online Scientific Curation

In addition, we understand the importance of communicating the latest scientific/medical discoveries in an open and rapid format, accessible over the social media platforms.  To this effect we have developed a methodology for real time conference coverage

see  Press and Conference Coverage

at  https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

AND

The Process of Real Time Coverage using Social Media

at https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/part-one-the-process-of-real-time-coverage-using-social-media/

Using these strategies we are able to communicate, in real time, analysis of conference coverage for a multitude of conferences.

Has technology and social media platforms now have enabled our ability to rapidly communicate, in a more open access platform, seminal discoveries and are scientists today amenable to virtual type of meetings including displaying abstracts using a real-time online platform?

Some of the Twitter analytics we have curated from such meetings show that conference attendees are rapidly adopting such social platforms to communicate with their peers and colleagues meeting notes.

Statistical Analysis of Tweet Feeds from the 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

Word Associations of Twitter Discussions for 10th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference at the Harvard Medical School, November 12-13, 2014

Comparative Analysis of the Level of Engagement for Four Twitter Accounts: @KDNuggets (Big Data) @GilPress @Forbes @pharma_BI @AVIVA1950

Twitter Analytics on the Inside 3DPrinting Conference #I3DPConf

 

Other Twitter analyses of Conferences Covered by LPBI in Real Time have produced a similar conclusion: That conference attendees are very engaged over social media networks to discuss, share, and gain new insights into material presented at these conferences, especially international conferences.

And although attracting international conferences is lucrative to many cities, the loss in revenue to organizations, as well as the loss of intellectual capital is indeed equally as great.  

Maybe there is room for such type of conferences in the future, and attending by a vast more audience than currently capable. And perhaps the #openscience movement like @MozillaScience can collaborate with hackathons to produce the platforms for such an online movement of scientific conferences as a Plan B.

Other articles on Real Time Conference Coverage in the Online Open Access Journal Include:

Innovations in electronic Scientific Publishing (eSP): Case Studies in Marketing eContent, Curation Methodology, Categories of Research Functions, Interdisciplinary conceptual innovations by Cross Section of Categories, Exposure to Frontiers of Science by Real Time Press coverage of Scientific Conferences

Real Time Coverage and eProceedings of Presentations on 11/16 – 11/17, 2016, The 12th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston

Tweets by @pharma_BI and by @AVIVA1950: Real Time Coverage and eProceedings of The 11th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference, November 18-19, 2015, Harvard Medical School

REAL TIME Cancer Conference Coverage: A Novel Methodology for Authentic Reporting on Presentations and Discussions launched via Twitter.com @ The 2nd ANNUAL Sachs Cancer Bio Partnering & Investment Forum in Drug Development, 19th March 2014 • New York Academy of Sciences • USA

Search Results for ‘Real Time Conference’

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Lab Grown Brains and more from Twittersphere on 3D Bio-Printing News

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D

How Tiny Lab-Grown Human Brains Are Giving Big Insights Into Autism and more from the Twittershpere

 

https://twitter.com/singularityhub/status/664508353771610112

(more…)

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Twitter Offers Valuable Insights Into The Experience Of MRI Patients, Charles Sturt University Study

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Read at:

Twitter offers valuable insights into the experience of MRI patients

Tweets can give medical professionals a window into the minds of patients, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences

Philadelphia, PA, October 28, 2015 – Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can be a stressful experience for many people, but clinicians have few ways to track the thoughts and feelings of their patients regarding this procedure. While the social networking site Twitter is known for breaking news and celebrity tweets, it may also prove to be a valuable feedback tool for medical professionals looking to improve the patient experience, according to a new study published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences.

Johnathan Hewis, MSc, PgCert (LTHE), PgCert (BE), BSc Hon, an investigator from Charles Sturt University in Australia, analyzed 464 tweets related to MRI over the course of one month and found that patients, their friends, and family members were sharing their thoughts and feelings about all aspects of the procedure through the microblogging site. Tweets were categorized into three themes: MRI appointment, scan experience, and diagnosis.

Twitter is a giant in the social media space. In 2014, 19% of the entire adult population of the U.S. used Twitter, with almost 90% of those individuals accessing the service from their mobile phones. Because it is so ubiquitous, Twitter can provide crucial new insights to which practitioners would otherwise not be privy. In the study, patients expressed anxiety about many aspects of the process, including a lot of stress over the possibility of bad news. “The findings of this study indicate that anticipatory anxiety can manifest over an extended time period and that the focus can shift and change along the MRI journey,” explained Hewis. “An appreciation of anxiety related to results is an important clinical consideration for MRI facilities and referrers.”

The study found that tweets encapsulated patient thoughts about many other parts of the procedure including the cost, the feelings of claustrophobia, having to keep still during the scan, and the sound the MRI machine makes. One particularly memorable tweet about the sound read, “Ugh, having an MRI is like being inside a pissed off fax machine!”

Not all the tweets were centered around stress. Many friends and family members expressed sentiments of support including prayers and offering messages of strength. Some patients used Twitter to praise their healthcare team or give thanks for good results. Others spoke about the fact they liked having an MRI because it gave them some time to themselves or offered them a chance to nap.

Twitter isn’t just words, it’s also a way to share pictures. “An unexpected discovery of the examination preparation process was the ‘MRI gown selfie,'” revealed Hewis. “Fifteen patients tweeted a self-portrait photograph taken inside the changing cubicle while posing in their MRI gown/scrubs. Anecdotally, the ‘MRI gown selfie’ seemed to transcend age.”

During the course of his analysis, Hewis discovered that many patients took issue with the fact that they were not allowed to select the music they listened to during the MRI. “Music choice,” said Hewis, “is a simple intervention that can provide familiarity within a ‘terrifying’ environment.’ The findings of this study reinforce the ‘good practice’ of enabling patients’ choice of music, which may alleviate procedural anxiety.”

With such a broad reach, social networks like Twitter offer medical practitioners the opportunity to access previously unavailable information from their patients, which can help them continuously improve the MRI experience. “MRI patients do tweet about their experiences and these correlate with published findings employing more traditional participant recruitment methods,” concluded Hewis. “This study demonstrates the potential use of Twitter as a viable platform to conduct research into the patient experience within the medical radiation sciences.”

Media Contact

Chris Baumle
hmsmedia@elsevier.com
215-239-3731

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