philipn
Joined 18 years ago
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https://localwiki.org
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Comment · 4 years ago
Me and my cofounder Chris have been quietly working on Encycla for a while now. Previously, I started LocalWiki[1] and DavisWiki[2]. What I couldn't stop thinking about was: is Wikipedia really "it" in terms of web-wide knowledge sharing?
There's been lots of note-taking apps and personal knowledge sharing tools developed in the past few years. But there's a big difference between working with people you already know and collaborating with anyone on the internet.
Right now, if you're interested in, say DIY air purifiers[3], you could throw up a document or webpage. But there's no good way for people you don't already know to work on it, to make it their own. If you're writing software, the answer is obvious: publish a Git repository on GitHub/GitLab.
With Encycla, we're building a sort of "GitHub for knowledge": a place where you can create simple, topical webpages that others can fork and asynchronously push & pull changes from (without knowing about Git or anything technical).
On the backend, every page on Encycla is a git repository containing Markdown that you can clone, edit independently of the Encycla website, push to other services (such as GitHub, GitLab), etc.
Comment · 5 years ago
Aaron Swartz actually built the original version of the Open Library site.
Comment · 6 years ago
Yes, this is one reason why an approach using a form of soluble ACE2 is so promising; mutations that would normally cause e.g. monoclonal antibodies to stop working (as detailed with the mink mutation) would in theory not stop the 'decoy receptor' approach.
Despite the fact soluble ACE2 is not looking like it'll be developed in time to impact the pandemic, there is a silver lining:
If you look at the original paper (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...), you'll note they include details on angiotensin peptide levels in the patient.
Interestingly, in this n=1 case report, it looks like the soluble ACE2 is unlikely to have worked as an antiviral; the patient already had a high level of antibodies, as you can see in the Lancet paper above. So /if/ the patient's improvements can be ascribed to the soluble ACE2 treatment, it's likely the improvement was because of the effect the soluble ACE2 had on the person's renin-angiotensin system.
And if this holds, then it's likely many of these same improvements would be possible using a common class of widely-available blood pressure medications called ARBs.
This approach would not neutralize the virus, but instead stop the body from damaging itself. That's the theory, at least.
There are ~20 trials of ARBs for COVID-19 in progress now, though almost all are underdosed.
Comment · 6 years ago
The spike protein downregulates ACE2[1], which may make an otherwise benign respiratory infection severe[2].
1. SARS1 spike protein itself, without any virus, causes ACE2 downregulation which leads to severe lung damage: https://twitter.com/__philipn__/status/1237588716236898304
2. When mice are engineered to be deficient in ACE2, the otherwise non-severe RSV causes severe disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4728398/
(This may be why COVID is bad. Check out my twitter above for a lot on this)
Comment · 6 years ago
It was not blinded. It was open-label and the outcomes were subjective (ICU admission). The doctors involved with the trial knew who got what and may have biased their actions based on that. Given the subjective outcome and small number of participants, this is particularly important. The trial would be slightly underpowered even if it were blinded.
Other studies on Vitamin D are retrospective cohort / observational studies which are heavily biased with possible confounders with respect to Vitamin D.
My personal opinion is that Vitamin D may help in COVID-19 but this trial does not 'confirm' that. Someone should run a similar trial with more participants and/or a fully blinded trial / a trial with more outcomes (biomarkers, etc).