David Abelson

Can bacteria save out planet? They metabolise plastic, break down oil slicks, thrive in boiling acid, and outwit our strongest antibiotics. And there are 10^30 of them to help. All we need is to learn to talk to them: A new LLM speaks their language!

💥 Excited to introduce Bacformer 🦠 - the first foundation model for bacterial genomics. Bacformer represents genomes as sequences of ordered proteins, learning the “grammar” of how genes are arranged, interact and evolve. Preprint 📝: biorxiv.org/content/10.110… 🧵 1/n

@ThoraxBMJ @DavidT_Arnold Such basic and critical information. That, In 2024, we treat pleural infections, abscess and pneumonia without information on antibiotic concentrations in the relevant space is embarrassing to our field and an academic scandal. Thank you for the work!

Antibiotic pharmacokinetics in infected pleural effusions @DavidT_Arnold thorax.bmj.com/content/early/…

NEWS Bronx medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is now tuition-free thanks to a $1 billion gift from Dr. Ruth Gottesman, a former professor. Gottesman, whose late husband was an early investor with Warren Buffett, has made it a condition of the gift that the college NOT change its name—an unusual requirement in a world where much smaller gifts often come with the requirement that the colleges be named after the donor. Most students at the Einstein College of Medicine graduate with $200,000 in debt; they will now be free of that burden. nytimes.com/2024/02/26/nyr…

new in @ERSpublications ERJ Making sense of the microbiome erj.ersjournals.com/content/63/2/2…

@wiatrak_maciej @AndresFloto @mariabrbic @aaron_weimann Just love this work. Thank you all! Opens so many possibilities for research and clinical learning.

1/n Excited to share our new work with @AndresFloto, @mariabrbic and @aaron_weimann on predicting antibiotic resistance from DNA 🧬. We present GeneBac: a deep-learning modular framework for modelling bacterial genomes (tiny.cc/p1asvz).

@ThoraxBMJ @YCGaryLee Thanks Gary.

Mucus clears from the trachea in a helix: a new twist to understanding airway diseases thorax.bmj.com/content/early/…

Mucus and sputum might disgust most people, but to me it is a thing of beauty.

@ThoraxBMJ Thanks to the BMJ for publishing this beautiful video for everyone to enjoy.

We need a language to describe clinically important effects. The p-value tells us how certain we can be of the result, NOT the 'signficance'. ⚡️ “Statistical significance must go” by @_MiguelHernan twitter.com/i/moments/8642… ⚡️ “Statistical significance must go” @_MiguelHernan

@EpiEllie @_MiguelHernan @PCORI @HarvardChanSPH @US_FDA @PRECIS_2 @HarvardEpi Dear all, I'm about to start a PhD in Toronto in epidemiology of Lung Transplant. Do you know anyone at UToronto who works on causal inference?

Pragmatic trials are designed to help patients and doctors make better decisions. Exclusive reliance on intention-to-treat defeats that purpose. So we’re crowdsourcing guidelines for #causalinference from pragmatic trials. Join us at👉🏼hsph.harvard.edu/causal/pragmat… @_MiguelHernan

This is such a worthwhile cause... pun intended If only I knew enough to even contemplate contributing! #bookofwhy

@jordy_bc @EpiEllie Jordy, I'm about to start a PhD in Toronto in epidemiology of Lung Transplant. Do you know anyone at UToronto who works on causal inference?

An important discussion that could substantially influence how we interpret trials in the future!

@Fishburners what time does #fridaynightpitches start?

@CATHERINEkitney What time does #FridayNightPitches start @Fishburners? I run Unpage Me, interested in meeting some people.