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Love Island: The Greg vs. Michael problem. Familiarity or newness?
Smedias 2021 FAQ
First step is to pre-register your interest, you will find the link on the main page. This means we can communicate updates on the categories and event with you directly. Q. How do I apply? Specifics about this will be in each category. You will...
Smedias 2021 – Entry Guidelines
The 21st annual National Student Media Awards are coming! Marking the best in student film, photography, journalism and design, The Smedias have been a consistent platform for students over the last 20 years upon which they can showcase their work, gain recogn...
The Oxygen.ie 2020 Goodie Bag Campaign is coming to your college soon! To claim your Goodie Bag simply fill out the form below and show the email to the Students Union in participating colleges, when next on campus, to pick up your goodie bag! ...
EDITORIAL: Core principles of punching up and fairness need to be at the fore of reporting on protests
Through every level of journalism, from school to community to national, the core principle remains that journalism should always punch up, meaning it should always hold those in power to account. With protests across the world supporting the #BlackLivesMa...
We're almost halfway through the second semester or perhaps you've even already hit reading week! Point is, by now you're most likely living on a diet of dry pasta or toast. With Valentine's day just having past, I have dating on the brain. This article is de...
Goodie Bag up for Grabs: Our freebies hit campus this week!
Our annual goodie bag campaign is hitting campuses all across the country this week. We've all been there: you start out Freshers' with the best intentions to embody the block of sense you swear to your Mam you are. Come Friday, however, your best laid plans ...
What Love Island's Maura has taught us about gender stereotypes
The arrival of twenty-eight year old Longford native Maura Higgins into the Love Island villa two weeks ago shook the villa and the public so hard, we still haven't restored our balance. With her fiery demeanour, unfiltered mouth and overall carefree attitu...
Oxygen.ie are Giving Away 2x Post Malone Tickets
Summer Stories – Part 1
There is something universally exciting about summer. Whether you're 12 years old and its a couple of months before you start secondary school, you're a young student about to spend the next 3 months working in America or you're mentally preparing to spend th...
The Smedias: All you need to know for the Big Day
So the day is nearly upon us. Tomorrow is the day that we've all been waiting for. The Acdamey awards will be blown away tomorrow night by this years Smedias. YOU HAVE TO HAVE BOOKED A TICKET if you want to come so make sure you're sorted. No one will be...
Smedias 2019 – Update!
Hey everyone! So, first things first - congratulations on your nomination for the Smedias! We are all busy getting ready and trying to make this one the best Smedias yet, and we hope that you're just as excited! This year we've made a change, a...
2019 Smedia Nominees are in!
The 2019 National Student Media Awards are fast approaching, and we are delighted that we can announce our first selection of nominees! These entrants have made their way through the shortlisting process, and will progress onto the next stage - the awards ...
Smedia's Update
First things First, we were absolutely blown away by the number of applicants to the annual Smedia awards this year. So on behalf of the whole team, we want to thank every one of you who have taken part in the awards thus far and sought to further yoursel...
A Festival Dedicated To Cakes, Bakes And Doughnuts Is Coming To Dublin
A festival dedicated to cakes, bakes and doughnuts is coming to Dublin on April 6th and 7th, and the best part of all, it's free! From crisps to wine and cheese festivals, Eatyard have become known for their quirky food events, but this is truly their bes...
Here's Everything New To Netflix This April
April is certainly a big month for the world of film and TV with the final season of Game Of Thrones, Avengers: Endgame and the Derry Girls finale I know you will need new content to get you through the month, so here is everything new to Netflix this April. ...
New Study Says People Don't Become Adults Until Their 30s
The term "grow up" is about to have a brand new meaning, a new study has suggested that people don't become fully "adult" until they are in their 30s. In Ireland, as well as most places elsewhere, people technically become adults at the age of 18, but thi...
A Drake And Josh Reboot Is Finally Happening
Drake Bell has confirmed that he and former co-star Josh Peck are working on a Drake & Josh reboot and I honestly cannot wait! Drake and Josh played stepbrothers in the early 2000s hit Nickelodeon show and now, 12 years after the show came to an e...
If You Loved Bojack Horseman Then You Will Love Tuca & Bertie
Netflix have announced their brand new Netflix Original set to hit screens May 3rd starring Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip) and I am 100% here for it. As Netflix themselves put it "They're relatable, fly AF, and just happen to be bird women." and honestl...
Pat Laffan Has Died
Listen up lads cause I have got some sad news for you, Pat Laffan (aka Pat Mustard) has died. Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan confirmed the news last night, for many Father Ted fans (including myself) Pat will always be remembered for his beloved rol...
8 Tips for the Student Traveling to New York
Aghhhh you and your mates have just booked flights for New York and you're just full of excitement thinking about all the adventures you're going to have this summer. And you keep thinking about those same adventures and how much they'll cost and quickly that...
A Brand New Trailer For The Avengers: Endgame Has Been Released
Marvel have released a brand new trailer for Avengers Endgame and I have a lot of questions. The video revisits the pasts of each of our favourite heroes (or should I say fallen heroes), however a new character has been introduced to the film, Captain Mar...
5 Places To Go For A Girls Weekend Away
There's nothing better than having a girls weekend away. But, where to go? I've put together some of the best places to go on a girls weekend away. 1. The G Hotel https://www.instagram.com/p/BtJzA44lxaK/ The G Hotel in Galway is a really beautiful...
Boost To Sponsor 'Radio DJ(s) Of The Year' Award At 2019 Smedias
The National Student Media Awards is one of the most important dates in the student calendar, and is a fantastic career opportunity – and night out - for students. This year – for the 19th awards – we are delighted to announce that our 'Radio DJ of the Year'...
A Lindt Chocolate Afternoon Tea Is Coming To Dublin
Attention all chocolate lovers this is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill, a Lindt chocolate afternoon tea is coming to Dublin! To mark Mother's Day (31st of March), Lindt Chocolate Ireland have teamed up with The Morrison Hotel to create a del...
Disney Have Released The Full Aladdin Trailer
The full Aladdin trailer is FINALLY here and it is truly magical, Disney announced the news yesterday and now the wait is over! The full trailer has been posted on their YouTube channel and honestly I cannot wait, the movie is set to premiere 24th of May ...
Ireland Has Been Voted One Of The Top Ten Countries To Live In If You're A Woman
A new study has revealed the best and worst countries to live in as a woman and shock horror Ireland has just made the top ten, who would've thought eh? Every year Nepstick compiles a liveability index that focuses on one group society, last year the stud...
5 Places You Need To Travel While In College
Ah spring, the time of year when the sun comes out but it still continues to snow, only in Ireland of course, feel like you need a holiday and fast? Then keep reading, here are the top 5 places you need to visit in college. 1. Budapest, Hungary ...
Drinking Tea Could Lengthen Your Life
Listen up guys cause I've got news for you, a new study has found that drinking tea could lengthen your life, I think it's time we stick on the kettle lads eh? Researchers from the University of Western Australia looked at over 1,000 older women, aged in ...
7 Girl Boss TV Shows You Need In Your Life
As today is International Women's Day here are the 7 most iconic and totally girl boss TV shows you need in your life, so kick off your shoes, put up your feet and get watching gals, cause these are some shows you won't want to miss. 1. The Bold Type ...
What To Give Up For Lent.
So you've made the pancakes (and eaten them all) now it's time to give up something for Lent. Your Granny would say chocolate, your bank would say shopping. Here at Oxygen, I've come up with an 'alternative' list of things you should give up for Lent. 1. T...
True Crime Shows To Binge Watch
True Crime has become a major phenomenon, there are countless documentaries and shows popping up on all our favorite streaming sites so here are a few for you to binge watch (if you haven't already of course) and sharpen your detective skills. The Staircas...
Why You Need To Apply For The Blog/Vlog Of The Year Award
Listen up bloggers and vloggers, if you have a passion for blogging, writing or are simply dreaming of becoming the next Zoella or Dan Middleton then you need to apply for the "Blog/Vlog of the Year" Award! Not only is this award the best way to get the na...
Derry Girls Star Nicola Coughlan Reveals How She Mastered The Derry Accent
Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan, best known as Clare Devlin in the hit Channel 4 sitcom has revealed how she nailed the Derry accent. Nicola, who appeared along with fellow Derry Girls stars, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Jamie-Lee O'Donnell and...
Celebrate Pancake Tuesday With A Smiley Face
Pancake Tuesday takes place this year on March 5th (today), people all over the country whip out their pans and try to flip the perfect pancake, while others, like me, are lazy and buy them. Mostly because I don't want to burn the kitchen down. https://ww...
Kevin McGahern's Solo Pollo
Comedian and Republic Of Telly star Kevin McGahern is back and with a brand new show! The silver tongued Cavan native promises a mix of traditional stand up, character based comedy and lovely funny songs, all in all a great Friday night out. https://w...
The Cast Of Derry Girls Will Be On The Late Late Show Tonight
As many of you know Derry Girls is back next week and nothing could be more exciting, to top it all off, the cast of the hit show, will be talking Tubs himself on The Late Late Show tonight! They will be discussing why a show about teenagers getting thems...
The Jonas Brothers Are Back
The Jonas Brothers are officially back and have released their new single "Sucker" and honestly my inner teen is screaming! Having been a major fan of The Jo Bros this news absolutely made my life and so the time has come, they have finally released brand...
Marmite Easter Eggs Are A Thing, And Just No
Ah Easter, the time to completely binge out on all things to chocolate and of course Easter eggs, well listen up lads (and lassies) as I have a shock for you. Marmite Easter eggs are a thing and I am not here for it, the disgusting (probably) egg has just...
Brooklyn Nine-Nine Has Been Renewed For Season 7
Listen up Brooklyn Nine-Nine fans cause I have got news for you, the hit show has officially been renewed for a seventh season! NBC announced the news yesterday after sharing the moment the cast found out and honestly it is the sweetest thing. The...
Women Protest With Suitcases Against Northern Ireland Abortion Laws
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that is yet to allow legal access to abortion, to protest this, 28 women have marched across Westminister Bridge to go against the laws that disable women in Northern Ireland to get an abortion. The number 28 re...
Everything New To Netflix This March
Are you bored of watching the same shows and movies over on Netflix? Then don't worry I have got you covered, here's everything coming to Netflix this March. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (21.03) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=wUn...
Pixar Release Short Film About Animal Abuse
Pixar have been known to create some truly beautiful award-winning short films from 'Pip' to 'Paperman', 'Bao' and their most recent one 'Purl' which looks at discrimination in the workplace. They recently released their latest short film 'Kitbull' which...
The Lion King Live Action Release Date Has Been Revealed
A new trailer for the 'live action' remake of 'The Lion King' dropped at last night's Oscars and take all of our money now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQN75AKDwks For many it was the film that made their childhood (including mine) but more than...
The Academy Lose The Plot – Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody Win Big At Oscars
Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody were the big winners at last night's Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles. Green Book took home the big prize – 'Best Picture', in a shocking turn of events, as usually, to win Best Picture a movie must be considered good, and no...
Bohemian Rhapsody heading for Oscar Honor
One of the best films of 2018 was Bohemian Rhapsody which has already earned itself two Golden Globe's for 'Best Motion Picture' and 'Best Actor' and is nominated in five different categories at the 2019 Academy Awards including 'Best Picture' and 'Best Actor...
Space Jam 2 Is Happening And My Inner Child Is Screaming
Ah Space Jam, the classic basketball movie starring Michael Jordan, Bill Murray and all things Looney Tunes, I have been praying for a sequel and that day has finally come, and with a release date. Space Jam 2 is happening and we don't have that long to wa...
The 6 Most Iconic Moments From 2019 The Brit Awards
Last night's BRIT Awards included some seriously memorable moments and lucky for you I have compiled a list of the 6 most iconic moments from last night's show. 1. Caroline Flack Taping Her Heel Back Onto Her Shoe Love Island host Caroline Flack suffere...
We Finally Have A Return Date For Derry Girls
We finally have a return date for Derry Girls season 2 and oh my god it is so close! The award-winning show, set in Derry during the troubles, will air it's second season from Tuesday the 5th of March. Members of the cast have been hinting that the re...
Miley Cyrus To Join RuPaul's Drag Race
The first official trailer for season 11 of RuPaul's Drag Race has been released and it looks like we're in for a fierce season! Last week, Ru revealed that the new season premiere will open with Miley Cyrus as the first guest judge, following in the foots...
5 Tips for the Student Traveling on a Budget
1) Make A Budget I promise you that this list will most assuredly get more helpful or nuanced but right now let us get the obvious out of the way, make a budget. They're not sexy, they're not fun but they're necessary. I understand the last thing you want ...
A Night At The Chinese Opera
This Lunar New Year this year is the Year of the Pig. In traditional Chinese lore they are a sign of wealth, and their cutie round faces are a sign of good fortune as well. Bring on the Year of the Pig so! I attended The Spring Festival Gala Ireland held ...
Irish Film 'Dub Daze' To Premiere At International Film Festival.
I recently wrote about the Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival which is set to take place on the 20th of February until the 3rd of March. The festival has a passionate belief in the power of film and is a massive advocate of Irish cinema, one...
5 Tips For Cooking As A Student
For many people their first experience of living away from home comes when they go to university, but for most freshers the task of cooking a decent meal can be a little daunting: it's much easier to get a pizza delivered or to stop off at a late night kebab ...
The First Trailer For Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists Is Here
Listen up Little Liars cause the brand new trailer for Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists has arrived. Now normally spin-off shows like this don't bring back the original cast, however, The Perfectionists is bringing back two big names and honestly i...
Instagram's Most Popular Dog Breed Has Been Revealed
Let me start off by saying all dogs are beautiful and it's not hard to see why they are called man's best friend (and mine). Each breed is unique in its own way and has its own traits that makes it special, but when it comes to the most-loved breed on Ins...
The Top 3 Martial Art Books for You Should Not Miss!
So you want to become a professional martial art player? It isn't easy because you have to improve the level of fitness. According to professionals, martial arts is the most complicated sports that require mental and spiritual aspects. If you want to esti...
The RSA Award For Journalism In Road Safety Will Be Presented At The Smedias 2019!
The National Student Media awards are delighted to once again be partnering with The Road Safety Authority to present 'RSA Award for Journalism on Road Safety'. Writers and journalists occupy a crucial role in spreading the message of road safety and brin...
Smedias 2019 Pre Registration
Please let us know what category(ies) you are interested in and we can communicate updates on categories, reminders of dates and the event. ...
6 Things I Learned From Speed Dating
I was excited to go to the CHQ speed dating event as it supported two of my favourite causes, Movember Ireland and Breast Cancer Awareness. It's not often that you get to try something as crazy as this with over 800 people either; The event was an attempt...
Tattoos VS Piercings, which hurts most?
So recently, I decided to get a piercing, it's something I've always wanted to do but just never bit the bullet and actually did it. Yeah ok I have my ear lobes pierced but I got them done in Claire's when I was like 10 so that doesn't really count, does it? ...
The Worst Films To Watch Alone On Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day is just an excuse for capitalists to make money off a basic human emotion with cards and flowers, and the film industry is no different. If you're lucky enough to be watching something with a significant other tonight, congratulations, but ...
Barbie Dolls Will Now Have Wheelchairs And Prosthetic Limbs
The makers of Barbie have revealed their new line of dolls and honestly it is my new favourite thing. Mattel has introduced a doll in a wheelchair and another with a prosthetic limb, can we just appreciate how amazing this actually is though, good on you B...
The European Commission Award Will Be Presented At The 2019 National Student Media Awards
This year the European Commission Award will be awarded to the best article which covers EU affairs and was printed in a student publication within the last year. The European Commission is an institution of the European Union, responsible for proposing legis...
Sziget 2019: 5 Reasons Why International Festivals Are Better
So Sziget festival just released their second round of announcements for their 2019 festival taking place in Budapest. It included the likes of Post Malone, Sigala, Years & Years and Masego. After this announcement, it basically occurred to us that Intern...
CervicalCheck Screening Faces Backlog Of 78,000 Smear Tests
CervicalCheck now has a backlog of 78,000 smear tests following a large increase in samples taken last year. It is estimated that the CervicalCheck scandal in which saw over 200 women who were given false negative results, led to an additional 9,000 women...
The Trailer For Derry Girls Season 2 Has Arrived!
The beginning of 2018 started off on a good note for many as our television screens were blessed with the wonder that is Derry Girls. The first season of the show written and created by Lisa McGee proved to be one of the strongest shows on television in 2...
Review: Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next
Ariana Grande's fifth album – and second in half a year – is the strongest work of her career so far; a brilliant blend of personal and crowd-pleasing pop perfection. Sweetener, Ariana Grande's previous album, was released to critical and commercial succe...
Labour Court Offers Proposal To Nurses
Intentions of a three day, 24-hour strike of nurses and midwives across Ireland has been suspended. The strike, planned for February 12th, 13th and 14th ended yesterday with an announcement from Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) general secret...
Today Is The Top Day Of The Year To Get Dumped
Although many of us may be preparing for the big day of romance also known as Valentine's Day it might not be your lucky day as today is the top day of the year to get dumped, two days before Valentine's Day talk about harsh! The 12th of February has been ...
A Woman Got Engaged To A Ghost And We Can't Deal
They say there is someone out there for everyone and Valentine's Day certainly could not have come at a better time as a British woman is set to marry her boyfriend, the ghost. Yes you read that right lads, you can now marry a ghost and what the actual f*...
Derry Girl Star Backs Campaign To Decriminalise Abortion In Northern Ireland
Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan who plays Clare Devlin in the award-winning Derry Girls has said she supports the campaign to decriminalise abortion in the North of Ireland. The actress appeared alongside fellow Derry Girls co-star Jamie-Lee O'Donnell in...
The New Aladdin Trailer Has Dropped
Disney has released a new trailer for the live-action Aladdin remake. The trailer premiered during last night's Grammy Awards and shows Will Smith as the blue Genie for the first time. We also see Jafar, Princess Jasmine, Aladdin and of course the city o...
The Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival
The Virgin Media Dublin International Festival takes place on the 20th February until the 3rd of March. 'DIFF curates and presents the best in emerging International and Irish film and moving image culture for a wide audience through its flagship annual f...
Contributors Wanted!
Hey guys Oxygen.ie are currently looking for contributors and sub editors to join our team! Not only is it a great way to get experience it is the perfect way to get your name out there in the industry and to network! So please drop us an email over...
Why We Need To Stop Obsessing Over Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande is currently one of the biggest global superstars in the world, sure she's beautiful, has got a great singing voice and hair I would kill for but it begs me to the question, why are people so obsessed with her? Now don't get me wrong I h...
Hubba Bubba Gin Is Now A Thing And We Have All The Feels
Who else remembers the pure joy of chewing packet after packet of Hubba Bubba chewing gum? Well now you can enjoy the delicious treat while also getting your drink on! https://www.instagram.com/p/Blic4ewAYRV/?utm_source=ig_embed Sweet Little Liqu...
Philip Schofield Just Gave Holly Willoughby The Sweetest Birthday Present
Our favourite morning TV show host Holly Willoughby is celebrating her 38th birthday on Sunday and to honour this gorgeous gal Philip Schofield planned a big surprise for her today. During This Morning the team played Happy Birthday to her at the opening ...
Parents Raging Over Display Window In Dundrum
Parents are absolutely raging over the display window in House of Fraser Dundrum Shopping Centre and we honestly can't deal. In the lead-up to Valentine's Day the store has opened up a pop-up shop for luxury lingerie brand Agent Provocateur. The store is ...
Nurses Take To The Picket Lines For A Third Day
The nurses dispute with the government over low pay and staff levels shows no sign of ending with both sides holding firm. Day three of the strikes is currently underway and once again over 25,000 appointments, including outpatients and day surgeries have...
Why Cutting The Oscar Ceremony Run Time Is Ridiculous
At Monday's traditional Oscar Nominee luncheon, word spread that this year's ceremony is set to be a mere 3 hours long, as opposed to the near 4-hour length from 2018. This choice has been met with derision from film purists, casual fans and just about any...
5 things that are worse than the mock exams
All across Ireland, students have started mock exams for the Junior and Leaving Cert. And while the exams can be stressful, they are a test run for the real exams. Studying is hard but there are worse things in life to worry about. Here are 5 things that are ...
Scrubs Actor Has Been Diagnosed With Lung Cancer And Brain Tumour
Scrubs actor Sam Lloyd also known as the lovable Ted in the popular sitcom has been diagnosed with lung cancer and a brain tumour and we can't deal. The 55-year-old had surgery the following day only to discover that the tumour was too intwined to be ...
A 10 Things I Hate About You Screening Happening In Dublin
Are you dreading Valentine's day this year? A Dublin venue is hosting a screening of 10 Things I Hate About You next week. The screening will take place in the heated Botanical Garden and popcorn espresso martini's will be there on arrival! Who d...
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile To Air On Netflix
Are you obsessed with Netflix's latest installment Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes? Then we have got great news for you! Netflix have just purchased Zac Efron's new hit movie Extemely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile for $9 million dollar...
The Irish Student's Hangover Survival Guide
So, you've rolled over, batted your eyes awake and as you move you suddenly get that funky tummy feeling. Your head is banging like a sh*thouse door in a gale storm (bonus points for getting the reference). You feel the shame wash over you, congratulations yo...
A New Toy Story 4 Teaser Trailer Has Dropped
Another teaser trailer for Toy Story 4 has just dropped and the movie's plot has finally been revealed!! The movie's description reads: "Woody has always been confident about his place in the world and that his priority is taking of his kid, whether that's...
The CW Confirms Discussions Of Gossip Girl Reboot
Gossip Girl was one of the most iconic TV shows throughout our teenage years while we were growing up as we constantly clung to the mystery of Gossip Girl's identity and of course the drama. From the fabulous clothes to the scandalous love affairs (and of...
13 Acts Added To Forbidden Fruit Lineup
Forbidden Fruit will be returning once again to the Royal Hospital Kilmainham this June Bank Holiday. We couldn't be more excited about this year's lineup with the likes of Elbow, First Aid Kit, Danny Brown with 13 more acts being added today. If...
Release Date For 'The Witches' Remake Announced
Warner Bros have officially announced the release date for Roald Dahl's 'The Witches' remake. It was confirmed a mere two weeks that Anne Hathaway is set to play the terrifying grand witch in Roald Dahl's iconic classic. The film will be set in 1...
Screen Ireland To Sponsor Film Script Of The Year Award At 2019 Smedias
We are thrilled to announce that Screen Ireland will sponsor 'Film script of the year' Award at this year's Smedias! Screen Ireland formerly known as The Irish Film Board has been the figurehead for the development of Irish film, television and animation since...
The SFI Are Proudly Sponsoring Science Writer Of The Year Award 2019
The Science Foundation of Ireland will sponsor 'Science Writer of the Year' Award once again at this years National Student Media Awards! We are thrilled to have the SFI on board with us again to sponsor the award that celebrates the wonder of science and...
Nurses And Midwives Strike 24 Hours For Better Pay And Conditions
Over 35,000 nurses and midwives began their 24 hour strike this morning. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Association voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action last month. Today they are striking between 8am today and 8am Thursday for better pay and...
A Mini Friends Reunion Happened And We Can't Even
Courteney Cox needed a little help launching her Instagram page this week so good friend Ellen DeGeneres stepped in to stage a mini Friends reunion and we can't deal! The popular host came up with the best way to get Courteney some follows by bringing out ...
New Toy Story 4 Trailer Teases Return Of Beloved Character
The first teaser for Toy Story 4 is finally here and with a special surprise in store! The creators shared a first look at the beloved character with the caption "Bo's Back!" And this time the damsel in distress that we once knew and loved has had a serio...
'Superfan' Gets Harry Styles Tattoo On Cheek
What do you get the person who has everything? One Direction member Harry Styles has made millions already so buying a gift for his birthday might prove impossible. Singer Kelsey Carter has come up with an original present that will last a lifetime, liter...
Cardi B Announced As Final Headliner For Longitude 2019
Cardi B has been announced as the final headliner for Longitude 2019. Organisers announced the fantastic news as well as 11 new acts with big names like Anne-Marie also being added. https://www.instagram.com/p/BtLW0yCAlY-/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm...
Met Éireann Forecasts Snow This Week
Get ready lads because snow is coming this week! Met Éireann are predicting freezing temperatures of -5 degrees and severe frost. Tuesday is set to be very cold with outbreaks of rain, sleet and snow which will clear to scattered wintry showers and temper...
Netflix Shows To Binge Over The Weekend
The end of dry January is almost here but what to do on the last weekend? Binge watch Netflix shows of course, duh. Here are some Netflix shows you can happily binge over the weekend. 1. Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes https://youtu.b...
Aldi Are Selling Mars And Twix Hot Chocolate Pods And We Are Obsessed
Aldi have started selling Twix and Mars hot chocolate pods and honestly we could not be more excited! These amazing chocolate creations launched in Aldi stores across Ireland yesterday and only cost €3.29 for a pack of 8 pods, they are the perfect way...
Dublin Zoo Welcomes Two New Tiger Cubs
Dublin Zoo announced the birth of 2 new female Amur tiger cubs this morning. It has been over 20 years since a miracle like this has happened and we couldn't be happier about the news! The Amur cubs formerly known as Siberian tigers are an endagered specie...
Foras Na Gaeilge To Sponsor Two Irish Categories At Smedias 2019
We are thrilled to have Foras Na Gaeilge as a sponsor of two of our Irish categories at this year's Smedias! They will sponsor Iriseoireacht Trí Ghaeilge Raidió and Iriseoireacht Scríofa. Foras Na Gaeilge were created in 1999 and have helped in th...
Pharmacy Students Stage Dail Protest Over Fees
Pharmacy students are calling for a drop in fees, a new pharmacy programme was introduced in 2015 making placements unpaid and increasing final year fees. The Union of Students has said this has left many students struggling to finish their degrees. A...
Philip And Holly At It Again After Last Night's Awards
Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby have done it again after turning up to popular daytime show "This Morning" hungover and looking worse for wear after last night's awards! The hilarious hosts turned up to work on motorbikes this morning after winning t...
5 Things To Do On Valentines Day If You're Single
Ah Valentines Day, it's that special time of year when love is in the air, everything is overpriced and your parents ask you "When are you going to meet someone?" Well fret no more cause we've compiled a list of the top 5 best things to do this Valentines...
Domino's Are Giving Away 1,000 Of Their New Pizzas Tomorrow
Domino's are giving away 1,000 of their brand new pizzas tomorrow in celebration of their new Delight range. All you have to do to win a pizza is spot the Domino's #SliceOfDelight somewhere in Dublin. Here's what you need to look out for: If you...
2019 Oscar Nominations Revealed
The nominations for the 91st Academy Awards (the Oscars) have been revealed. The ceremony will take place on February 24th and we could not be more excited. In a shock turn of events Bradley Cooper has not been nominated for 'A Star Is Born' in the catego...
The Spoofers Guide to the Superbowl
BThe Superbowl now has it's two finalists, The Los Angeles Rams and Boston's New England Patriots For the next few weeks, people who think that American Football is actually a good sport that isn't Rugby with too many rules will try to tell everyone that t...
REVIEW: N26 The Mobile First Bank
Banks. The modern students arch nemesis. Always showing you how much money you don't have, constantly letting you buy double vodka's on a night out and you know that whole crashing the global economy thing. On a general basis banks are kinda terrible, and on ...
How To Beat The Monday Blues This 'Blue Monday'
Today is known as 'Blue Monday' a day when everyone starts to remember what they were doing this time last month, getting ready for Christmas, going to parties or just enjoying time off work, so here at Oxygen we've come up with 6 ways you can beat the blues ...
Hugh Jackman Wants Sequel To The Greatest Showman
When asked during a recent interview with BBC Radio 5 Live as to whether or not he'd be up for doing a sequel Hugh was more than happy to answer. He said: "If a genuine opportunity came up where it felt like the right thing to do, then yet, I'd get the to...
Woman Refused Abortion – This Is Bullsh*t
A woman has been refused an abortion just two weeks after it became legal in Ireland. The woman whose baby was diagnosed with a fatal foetal abnormality was refused for the procedure at Dublin's Coombe Hospital according to two TDs including TD Ruth Copp...
This First Dates Moment Has Us Shook
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RNA should be a terrible drug target. It's long, noodle-like structure lacks the nooks and crannies that small-molecule drugs use to grab onto proteins and thereby control them. But a decades-old disregard for RNA is starting to change. In August 2018, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever RNA interference (RNAi) drug, which uses a double-stranded RNA molecule to prevent the production of disease-related proteins. In the past two years, several startups have launched to show that some RNAs can, just like proteins, be drugged with small molecules. And a third group of companies recently emerged with plans to drug proteins that make modifications to RNA, part of the budding field of epitranscriptomics. In this episode, C&EN visits Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, and Accent Therapeutics to discuss these three strategies, and to understand how RNA-modulating therapies will compete in the wider world of drug discovery.
John Maraganore: I had the audacity in 2010 to get in front of the JP Morgan Healthcare conference and declare the decade of 2010 to 2020 as the RNA decade. And I wasn't actually far off, to be honest. I mean, it really has been a remarkable decade for RNA, and I think that's only going to continue for the next, you know, many decades from here.
Ryan Cross: You're listening to Stereo Chemistry, and I'm Ryan Cross, a biotech reporter for C&EN. That audacious claim was brought to you by John Maraganore, the CEO of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. His company develops drugs made from RNA. So he might be a little biased when giving RNA the win for the decade.
Lisa Jarvis: You think? This is Lisa Jarvis, and I'm C&EN's pharmaceuticals editor. And even though we aren't ready to call this past decade for RNA, Ryan and I both have noticed that in the last year or two, we were writing an awful lot about RNA.
Ryan: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that RNA is kind of a having a moment in the drug discovery world. And in this episode, we're going to talk to a bunch of people about why that is and what that means.
Lisa: We've written a lot of stories about the buckets of cash raised by biotech companies trying to modulate RNA in some form or fashion. And big pharma is getting in on the field by striking rather lucrative deals with these biotechs. So now seemed like a good time to explore why RNA was, like Ryan said, having a bit of a moment.
Ryan: Before we go any further, though, let's talk about RNA. It's a tremendously important biomolecule that gets nowhere near the love that DNA does. Right? Thanks to things like 23andMe, I think it's safe to say that everyone is familiar with DNA. You might understand DNA as our genetic blueprint or the recipe for building proteins.
That's mostly true, but it skips a step. First, the DNA is transcribed into an intermediate molecule, called messenger RNA, or mRNA for short. Then our cell's machinery translates that mRNA code into instructions for making proteins.
Lisa: And proteins pretty much do everything for us. They give our bodies structure, help us move, carry messages. Basically, they're responsible for nearly all the action in our cells. For decades now, drug hunters have been pretty focused on the protein. But in the last decade or so, scientists have said, wait a minute, what if we invent drugs that can control RNA? That approach would keep proteins from being made altogether—a tantalizing idea.
Ryan: As we mentioned earlier, people are now using so many different strategies to go after RNA. Remember John Maraganore from the beginning of the episode? His company Alnylam is using a technique called RNA interference. In this strategy, short stretches of double-stranded nucleotides, which you might hear called short interfering or "siRNA," are used to shut down the activity of certain genes by binding to mRNA and preventing it from being used to make proteins.
Lisa: And even before that, there were antisense oligonucleotides. These rely on single-stranded stretches of nucleotides to shut down RNA.
Ryan: And don't forget that many companies are trying to make therapies out of mRNA itself, which could be used to prompt the body to make proteins that are missing or could be used therapeutically.
Lisa: And then, there's small molecules that directly bind RNA.
Ryan: And small molecules that change how chunks of RNA code are stitched—or as biologists like to call it, spliced—together.
Ryan: Maybe we should stop there.
Ryan: Let's just stick to where we're seeing all the money going for now.
Lisa: Ok. So you might be wondering why don't drug developers just keep knocking down proteins like they used to? Why shift the focus to RNA? Let's hear from John again.
John Maraganore: You know, there's also this world of undruggable targets where you can't really approach them with small molecules or antibodies as they stand right now. You have to target the RNA to get to the end result.
Lisa: Avid Stereo Chemistry listeners might recall an earlier episode that was all about undruggable targets. It turns out that something like 85% of the proteins our body makes can't be wrangled by conventional small molecules and antibodies. That out-of-bounds group includes a whole swath of proteins that we know cause disease.
Ryan: So how do you go about targeting RNA? Let's start by talking with Alnylam, since they've sort of been the star of this past year. FDA approved their drug, Onpattro, back in August. It is the first drug that acts by RNA interference that has made it to market. That's a remarkable development.
Lisa: What makes it so remarkable is that RNA interference, or RNAi as the cool kids like to call it, was discovered only two decades ago. To back up, scientists had long known that our cells use some mechanism—or mechanisms—to turn off gene expression—but what was it? That part was a mystery. Then in 1998, Craig Mello and Andrew Fire reported that they could turn off specific genes in worms by using short, double-stranded RNA molecules running 20 to 25 nucleotides long. Suddenly, by mimicking our cell's own process, scientists had an amazingly simple, but still extremely powerful method for exploring the function of different genes. It was a pretty big deal.
Ryan: Super big deal. They won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for that work. After Mello and Fire's discovery, lots of researchers started to tinker with RNAi in the lab. In 2000, one of those researchers, Phillip Sharp, came into Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where John worked at the time, to talk about what they'd learned.
John Maraganore: Phil reached out to me as an executive at Millennium and said, look you know this is a really interesting finding of RNA interference. And most people think it's only a biological process that occurs in lower organisms like plants and the worm. But we have identified that this is a pathway that is operative in mammalian cells. And that wasn't published at the time.
Ryan: That crew of RNA experts went on to form Alnylam to try to translate their finding into medicines. In 2002, John joined as CEO, and as he'll readily admit, it was a pretty risky move. Both his kids and his boss suggested it was a bad idea. You see, the concept of turning RNAi into a drug had a lot of promise, but very little data, particularly in live animals, or as we call it in the science world, in vivo.
John Maraganore: We actually had to teach the Alnylam founders that a cell experiment result is not in vivo. They used to think I mean, I kid you not, they would think, "Oh, we have in vivo data, we have cell data." Well that's not in vivo, guys. That's a petri dish. And so it took time. We knew it was early. We knew it was very early.
Ryan: Even when Alnylam filed the paperwork to go public in 2004, they had yet to demonstrate gene silencing in an animal. Knocking down RNA in humans? That would take many more years and a lot of trial and error.
The problem boiled down to sneaking these molecules into cells, where they could work their magic. You see, even though these are short strands of RNA, they're still way bigger than a small molecule. And there are other problems, too. We'll let John explain.
John Maraganore: These molecules are 14,000 Daltons, right? So they're pretty big. Biophysically, they're like a rod. They're incredibly charged on the outside, they've got you know just phosphate backbones like with negative charges all over the place. So they are the most deplorably unfit type of molecules to cross the cell membrane.
So we had to get from the outside of the cell into the inside of the cell and then on top of it to add to our challenge, right, we know that these molecules in the body can be degraded very rapidly. If you don't chemically modify them, they're degraded within minutes. So anything you'd inject would get you instantly destroyed.
Ryan: To make matters worse, John says, when RNA is in the bloodstream, or outside of cells, the body thinks it is under attack from a virus, which triggers an immune response. And the list goes on.
John Maraganore: And then on top of that I should mention, how do you make these things specific, right? How do you make sure that you're only going after the target gene of interest and not like, you know 100 other target genes. So there were a lot of things that had to get done to make them a viable pharmaceutical molecule.
Ryan: Figuring out how to solve all of those problems took years. It turns out that researchers had the right idea early on. It just took a long time to get it to work well.
That right idea was a lipid nanoparticle, a Trojan horse of sorts, that could sneak siRNA inside cells. Imagine a spherical shell made up of a collection of different lipids, each meant to do a different job, like interacting with cellular membranes, keeping the drug in the bloodstream longer, or even just giving the particle some structure. The hollow core of the lipid nanoparticle can h old a payload of siRNA that, assuming everything works out as it should, doesn't get released until the nanoparticle is in just the right place in the body.
Lisa: Getting these particles to work was no easy feat. In the early days, it took a huge dose of lipid nanoparticles to see the siRNA payload have any sort of impact on shutting down gene expression. When they tested those high doses in mice, they saw some pretty serious side effects, like inflammation and even death. But over the years, chemists and chemical engineers tinkered with the lipid composition to get to something that could work as a drug.
Ryan: That drug is Onpattro, which treats a rare genetic disease called hereditary transthyretin-related amyloidosis, or hATTR. In the disease, a mutation in a protein called transthyretin causes the protein to misfold into structures called amyloid fibrils. Transthyretin is primarily made in the liver, but the amyloid fibrils form toxic clumps in the nerves, heart, and other tissues. The siRNA tucked away inside Onpattro's lipid shell blocks the production of the transthyretin, preventing further buildup of those dangerous amyloid deposits.
The FDA gave itself a deadline of August 10, 2018, to make a decision on the drug, and it really let it go down to the wire. John can tell us about that day.
John Maraganore: It turns out—and this is just so crazy—I happened to be in front of our sales force. We were over at the Logan Airport Hilton and we had all of our reps you know they are all our entire field force there. I was literally on the stage. It was about noon and somebody from our field force said, "John, when will we know when we get the approval"? And I'm like, well you know we'll probably get an e-mail or fax and then we'll find out. And literally at that moment Barry Greene our president jumped up and said, "John, we just got approved!" Literally at the moment. I think it's been memorialized on social media because people were you know taking videos that we tweeted out and it was an amazing moment.
Ryan: Beyond that memorialization from Alnylam itself, social media that day was chock full of congratulatory messages from researchers and executives far and wide. People were just plain excited to see an RNAi finally cross the threshold from Nobel-winning idea to a marketed drug. It was a rare moment of unity and excitement in the biotech community—and reminiscent of a similar moment at the end of 2017 when the FDA approved the first gene therapy in the US. Gene therapies, which we'll hear a bit more about later, use viral shells to shuttle DNA into the body, and scientists have been trying to make them safe and effective for decades.
Lisa: So Ryan, I get the excitement. But just to be clear, we aren't all going to be trading in our pills for injectable RNAi therapeutics or DNA-stuffed viruses anytime soon.
Ryan: That's right. Although Alnylam has a whole pipeline of medicines in the works—in fact, it plans to soon ask FDA to approve a second drug that uses a newer delivery system—RNAi still faces some challenges. And they aren't trivial. The lipid nanoparticles are taken up by a receptor that's in liver cells, meaning the technology is most appropriate for diseases that manifest in the liver. Alnylam is making some progress in using a method of injecting the drug into the spinal cord to treat neurological disorders, but you'd really only want to take that route that for a very serious, life-threatening disease.
Lisa: Ah, yes, so getting back to all those undruggable targets we talked about earlier—this technology can address some, but definitely not all of them.
Ryan: And during the 16 years that Alnylam was working towards getting Onpattro onto the market, other companies have made a lot of progress in using various flavors of RNA as a drug. Antisense oligonucleotides, which had been around even before RNA interference drugs, finally have started to get traction, especially in neurological disorders. Just to remind you: These are kind of like siRNA, but they're short segments of single-stranded RNA rather than double-stranded RNA.
For nearly a decade, billions of dollars have also gone into turning mRNA itself into a drug, and some of those efforts are now being tested in humans. Both antisense oligos and mRNA have their own delivery problems, which, again, means they can't tackle every disease. And, by the way, all of these things are breathtakingly expensive. Onpattro? That drug carries a price tag of $450,000 per year.
Lisa: So RNA is a potentially great target, but using it as a drug might have its limits.
Ryan: Exactly. And in the last three years, something kind of interesting has happened that could change how we think about drugging RNA. An explosion of research and money has gone into another way to block, modify, or generally wrangle RNA.
Lisa: We're talking about small molecules!
Ryan: Amazingly, yes. Instead of using expensive, tough-to-deliver nucleic acid-based therapies, researchers have been trying to figure out if they can control RNA with good old-fashioned small molecules. If they are successful, it could open up a wide expanse of targets that, at least with current delivery technologies, are impossible for siRNA and antisense oligonucleotides to reach.
Lisa: We'll tell you how as soon as we get back from a short break.
Matt Davenport: Hey everyone. This is C&EN reporter and Stereo Chemistry producer Matt Davenport. There's a good chance you already know what I'm about to tell you, but it's so important I don't want to make any assumptions. In addition to hosting fantastic podcasts, Ryan and Lisa also write fantastic news stories for the C&EN magazine and website.
Take this as a for instance. I'm recording this on January 2, 2019, and like three hours ago C&EN posted an awesome story by Lisa about the record number of drugs approved by FDA last year. On top of that, our art and web designers put together this amazing interactive graphic that lets you see what these drugs are and learn more about them.
And, look, I know you're busy. Heck, if you're like me, you probably listen to podcasts while you're doing something else—driving, cooking, working hard to look casual yet actively avoid eye contact with anyone on public transit. So we know you're not going to have time to read every article we publish or interact with every sweet, sweet graphic that we make.
That's why we've got a newsletter that will send a collection of our best, most important stories directly to your inbox every week. And to get it, all you have to do is sign up at bit.ly/chemnewsletter.
Again, that link is bit.ly/chemnewsletter.
Subscribe now and kick off your new year with the peace of mind that you'll always be current with the biggest news in chemistry. And, speaking of which, let's get back to Ryan and Lisa.
Ryan: When I reported a story last year about the growing number of biotech firms trying to develop RNA-targeting small molecule drugs, the concept seemed ... pretty wacky. People in the field are quick to say that on the face of it, RNA is a terrible drug target.
Lisa: For our listeners who aren't RNA experts like you, Ryan, want to explain why it's such an awful target?
Ryan: Well, it has to do with the shape of a protein compared to the shape of RNA. Proteins—at least the ones we've developed drugs against—have a compact shape that includes nice, well-defined pockets with lots of dangling amino acid residues for a small molecule to interact with. RNA, on the other hand, just lacks obvious toeholds for small molecules. It's kind of like a strand of wet spaghetti—long and floppy.
Natalie Dales: With RNA, because it has a very flexible very dynamic structure and only a few pockets that aren't very well defined and that are kind of moving and shaking quite a bit, it's hard to get that specific interaction.
Ryan: That was Natalie Dales, and she knows a thing or two about coaxing small molecules into modulating the activity of RNA. As director of global discovery chemistry at Novartis, Natalie led a project to develop a compound called branaplam that everyone points to as the best evidence that small molecules can modulate RNA. It's currently in clinical studies to treat spinal muscular atrophy. People with the disease are born with a mutation that prevents the production of a spinal motor neuron protein that is vital to the survival of nerve cells. Without treatment, babies born with the most severe form of the disease don't usually live past two years old.
Lisa: So Natalie and her colleagues set out to develop a small molecule that could prompt cells to make that missing protein. And she will be the first to tell you that when her team began working on this in 2008, they weren't planning on designing a small molecule that could specifically target RNA.
Ryan: They were running what's called a phenotypic assay. So they weren't looking for small molecules that bind to any particular target, they were looking for small molecules that could induce some sort of change in nerve cells. In this case, the change they were looking for was the production of that spinal motor neuron protein. This screening led them to branaplam, but it took them quite a long time to figure out how the molecule actually worked.
Natalie Dales: We designed this really beautiful screen. We identified molecules that came from that screen. We spent a lot of time on medicinal chemistry of those molecules to kind of advance the potency, these types of things. In the meantime, alongside that, we're also elucidating the mechanism and that's where a lot of work went in to really show that at the molecular level we could understand what compounds like LMI070, also called branaplam, are doing.
Ryan: Branaplam's mechanism was even wonkier than they could have expected. Basically, it works by controlling splicing, or the process of stitching chunks of RNA together into a code that is ready to be translated into a protein. Splicing itself is controlled by a complex protein machine called the spliceosome.
Natalie Dales: The small molecule isn't only interacting with that RNA, it's actually acting with the protein and the RNA.
Ryan: What Natalie and her team found was that branaplam holds the RNA code for the spinal motor neuron protein alongside the spliceosome long enough to change the way the RNA is stitched together. That new pattern allows the missing protein to be synthesized.
Although the Novartis team didn't set out to find a molecule that interacted with RNA, their program showed that it was possible and revealed a drug candidate that's now in clinical trials. People working to develop small molecules targeting RNA often point to a 2015 publication from Novartis showing how branaplam works as a key turning point for the field.
Lisa: Moveover, in the ten years since Natalie and her colleagues began working on spinal muscular atrophy, researchers have developed new technologies that they think will allow drug developers to design these small molecules that interact with RNA on purpose.
Natalie Dales: I think that's exactly what we and others in the field are trying to do now. So using the learnings from our story and other stories, how do we now prospectively design? Now we understand a little bit more about RNA structure. One of the other things that we learned in this process was it's very important to understand the sequence.
Ryan: On the technology front, Natalie says one of the big breakthroughs has been a tool called "RNA-seq," which is a way of sequencing all of the RNA molecules in a cell. That tool lets scientists understand in minute detail how a compound affects the abundance and activity of RNA.
Natalie Dales: So with RNA-seq experiments, which can canvass the whole genome and can see with all of the different RNA changes that are happening due to compound, due to different concentrations of compound , time, all these things. Great advancements in that field have allowed those experiments to run much more quickly. So I think that's going to be really key. So now you can study a series of compounds, across a series of time points, across a series of cell lines, and really see at the RNA level what are the different things that are happening.
Ryan: Success stories like the one from Novartis are contributing to a swell of interest in using small molecules to modulate RNA. In the past two years, a bunch of biotech companies—many well funded, like Arrakis, Expansion Therapeutics, and Ribometrix—have all launched to directly bind RNA with small molecules. Others, such as Skyhawk Therapeutics, are focused on controlling RNA splicing, like Novartis.
Lisa: That perception that RNA is a terrible target? It's fair to say that it's definitely shifting, but as Natalie reminds us, the field has a lot to learn. And it's worth pointing out that, so far, Novartis is the only one of these companies with a drug in a clinical study.
Lisa: So, beyond spinal muscular atrophy, what are some of the drug targets or diseases that Novartis is going after with these RNA-targeting small molecules?
Ryan: They aren't saying, but they did publish a big study back in May showing that potentially druggable mRNAs are much more common than anyone imagined. And we do know that other, smaller biotech companies pursuing this approach are working on some pretty interesting stuff.
For example, people are interested in drugging an mRNA involved in a neurodegenerative disease called Huntington's. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about that program and others in the coming years.
Lisa: So I think it's important to mention a big caveat here: all of this is still in really early stages of research. None of these biotech startups have begun testing their RNA-targeting compounds in humans yet.
Okay, to recap, we've looked at companies using RNA as a drug, and we just talked about drugging RNA with small molecules. Wasn't there a third, totally different approach that you wanted to discuss?
Ryan: There is, and I've saved this one for the finale. It's all about making chemical modifications to RNA. And to learn about this, we spoke to Robert Copeland, president and chief scientific officer at the startup Accent Therapeutics.
Robert Copeland: For a long time RNA was considered to be a relatively passive molecule and that RNA was kind of a bystander. At Accent, we are focused on targeting enzymes that are involved in RNA modification. And the fact that RNA is modified has been known for something like 60 or 70 years, but until very recently it was sort of a laboratory curiosity. No one really understood what those modifications were all about.
Ryan: That's really started to change recently. In fact, there is an entire new field of biology that is devoted to understanding the enzymes and proteins that modify RNA called epitranscriptomics.
Lisa: Which is kind of like the RNA version of epigenetics.
Ryan: Right! So epigenetics is the study of how chemical modifications on DNA are involved in turning genes on and off. Epitranscriptomics is similar, but is the study of how chemical modifications regulate the transcriptome, i.e., all of the RNA in a cell.
Robert Copeland: ... or proteins that bind to the modified form of the RNA.We call them RNA-modifying proteins or RMPs for short. We are not targeting RNA per se. We're targeting the proteins and enzymes that modify RNA.
Ryan: Bob's company, Accent Therapeutics, launched last year to develop new ways of treating cancer.
Robert Copeland: It's really, as with most cancer therapies, it's about correcting a defect in the cancer cell. So in some cases a cancer cell will have too much of a particular modification on RNA. In other cases perhaps too little of a particular modification. And we're trying to sort of reset that rheostat if you will.
Ryan: That defect could be a mutation on one of those reader, writer, or eraser proteins. Simply having too many or too few of these epitranscriptomics proteins could also cause problems. Accent is currently focused on targeting "writer" proteins, the ones that lay down the RNA modifications.
Robert Copeland: We see these modifications across a broad spectrum of cancer cells and normal cells. So the real question is, can we identify specific cancers that for one reason or another are more dependent on the activity of that enzyme than are other cancer cells, and most importantly normal cells? And the answer is yes.
Ryan: Academic researchers have found a link between abnormal activity of enzymes that tack a methyl group onto RNA and specific cancers, including acute myeloid leukemia and glioblastoma. So Accent is trying to find these enzymes, or writer proteins, that certain cancer cells can't live without, but that healthy cells can live without. The idea is to then design a small molecule to shut one of these writer proteins down and, hopefully--remember, this is all theoretical--kill the cancer cells.
Even though the biology of this epitranscriptomics field is complicated, the drug targets themselves are proteins. And, as we've discussed, drug designers are really good at targeting proteins with small molecules. So if developing the epitranscriptomic drugs actually might be more straightforward than drugging RNA itself, why hasn't this been tried before? Well, a lot of the tools that have allowed scientists to imagine the possibility of designing drugs to bind RNA--they're the same tools that have ushered in this epitranscriptomics field.
Robert Copeland: About five or six years ago, there was a quantum leap in analytical methods that allowed, for the first time, real quantitation of the amount of modification in different nucleosides in RNA and also improvements in analytical methods for sequencing where along the RNA strand those modifications occur. And those technological advances really lead to an explosion in scientific knowledge.
Ryan: For now, Accent is focused on cancer, and just the writer proteins, but the reader and eraser proteins might be druggable too. And academic scientists are starting to look at the role of epitranscriptomics in other diseases beyond cancer.
Robert Copeland: The fact is that today the vast majority of approved therapeutics are small molecules, and we at Accent believe that there are good scientific, clinical, and socioeconomic reasons to think that small molecules will continue to hold a dominant position in human medicine.
Lisa: During that time, some truly game changing technologies came of age. The most notable near-term competitor for all of these? Gene therapy.
Ryan: Next in line? CRISPR gene editing.
Lisa: Okay, CRISPR therapies are a long way off from the market, but it makes me wonder about gene therapy, which is being hyped as a one-time treatment—that use DNA to cure disease. The FDA approved the first gene therapy just over a year ago. As a reminder, gene therapy uses the hollowed-out shells of viruses to deliver a gene, made of DNA, into cells. The goal is to provide a permanent set of instructions that lets cells produce proteins that are broken or missing. Couldn't gene therapies step in and render all of these RNA therapies obsolete?
Ryan: A lot of people are asking that question, because Novartis spent $8.7 billion last year to buy a gene therapy company that's developing a really promising treatment for spinal muscular atrophy.
Lisa: Hold up. Didn't we just talk to them about a small molecule drug that targets RNA for that same disease?
Ryan: Yep. And they're anticipating an FDA approval of the gene therapy this year.
Lisa: So what will happen to their small molecule for SMA?
Ryan: Well, Novartis says that the compound is still in development. But after all the money the company spent on the gene therapy, I'm not sure that the future looks too bright for that small molecule program.
Lisa: And on top of all that, there's already one therapy approved for spinal muscular atrophy, an antisense oligo drug called Spinraza.
Ryan: You're right. Still, the companies we talked to are convinced that RNA therapies will be competitive. And there are cases where they may not actually need to compete with these other drug modalities. For instance, RNAi silences genes, whereas gene therapy introduces genes. So there will likely be cases where one is clearly a better choice than the other.
Lisa: On the other hand, gene therapy and mRNA therapy both have the same end result. They both give the body instructions to make new proteins. So those classes of drugs could compete.
Ryan: True, but mRNA therapies are temporary, while gene therapies are forever. So different conditions will probably be better suited for one or the other. Alnylam's John Maraganore thinks there will be room for everyone.
John Maraganore: We need more complex therapeutic approaches whether it's a gene therapy approach whether it's a cell therapy approach whether it's RNA. You know, these are all the modalities of the future. I do believe that that much of the future of medicine is going to be rewritten by these types of new modalities.
Lisa: I couldn't help but notice that he didn't mention small molecules targeting RNA. I'm wondering what he thinks about those?
John Maraganore: Look, I think it's incredibly exciting. Don't get me wrong. And obviously in the future that could be competitive to us and it could be a threat to what we do, so I'm not I'm not dismissing that at all. But I think they still have a long way to go before they are there ultimately there.
Ryan: And John thinks RNAi has an ace up its sleeve, at least compared with small molecules. The allure of RNAi is that once you've perfected the process of making one RNAi drug, you should be able to make many more using the same process, just with a different RNA sequence to silence a different gene. He says that's radically different from small molecule drugs, where every new product essentially needs its own discovery program. RNAi could potentially deliver a platform, not just a single product.
Lisa: So, suffice to say, RNA drug development has promise, but in terms of actually getting medicines to patients, it's still early days.
Ryan: Right, and it's going take some time before we know whether any of the things we've talked about today will be successful. But we'll be watching.
John Maraganore: Ultimately, the products will have to speak for themselves and at the end it's actually good for patients to have competition. It's good for patients and physicians to have choice.
Lisa: That does it for our first episode of 2019. Let us know what you thought by heading over to iTunes and giving us a rating.
Ryan: Or by tweeting at us. I'm @RLCscienceboss.
Ryan: The music you're hearing right now is "Wireless" by Lee Rosevere. The music that kicked off the episode was "And... (Insert Problem Here)" by Grey.
Ryan: Be sure to join us for our next episode in early February when we'll go all Tina Turner on chemistry and ask, what's love got to do with it?
Lisa: Got to do with it. Thanks for listening.
"And...(Insert Problem Here)" by GR∑Y is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
"Raccoon Family Robinson" by Podington Bear is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0.
"Robot Park" by Podington Bear is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0.
"The Confrontation" by Podington Bear is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0.
"Wireless" by Lee Rosevere is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
Title: Is this the decade of RNA?


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Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Tuesday in Abuja wondered how a certain Jibril from Sudan would be presiding over the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting as rumoured by certain persons.
Buhari himself cleared the air and debunked the claims that he was cloned while fielding questions in Poland on Sunday.
Osinbajo expressed this shock in his address at a National Consultative Forum organised by the National Committee of Buhari Support Groups (NCBSG) in collaboration with Council for New Nigeria Initiative.
According to the vice president, the present government is earning 60 per cent less than the previous government, yet in the past three years it has spent N2.7 trillion on infrastructure.
He said that the Buhari-led administration had done much because it was not stealing money; was doing major roads in 36 states including Lagos-Kano railway, Warri, Aladja, Mambilla, Port Hacourt, Maiduguri among others.
Osinbajo said that the government was feeding over 9.2 million children every day; giving 2 million petty traders a better deal in life with Tradermoni and had employed 500,000 graduates under the NPower programme.
"They prayed for him to die he didn't die, when he came back hale and hearty by the grace of the Almighty God, they mourned while Nigerians rejoiced.
"The fear of Buhari makes these people desperate, even crazy. So now they say he is Jibrin from Sudan. If you can't discredit him say he doesn't exist; they were all alive and well when Pastor Adeboye went to London and prayed for him the day before he returned to Nigeria.
"Their strategy is simple, if you tell a lie often enough some will believe you. Buhari is not only alive and well. He will by God's grace live long and well after his second term in office," he said.
On his part, Sen. Ahmed Tinubu, National Leader, All progressives Congress (APC) expressed optimism that the party would emerge victorious in the 2019 presidential election.
Tinubu gave the support groups a recipe for effective campaign.
He said that the opposition would talk about herdsmen and farmers clash, adding that it also occurred during the previous government.
"But they have low way of thinking; they have low capacity to convert tragedy to a situation of opportunity and economic prosperity; we have the capacity in this country to do irrigation; utilise our water resources; to create green pastures and ranches.
"We will convert that mystery; that tragedy to opportunity to our people; we have higher institutions which have conducted various studies on ranching; we can only change the way of life of some people.
"The herders will have greener pastures, okay; let's build schools; let's build ranches and ask the animals to be in one position and create opportunities for farmers to provide animal feeds; even animal dung will become manure and will create a bigger economy.
"We can create slaughter labs and abattoirs; we can hygienically transfer those feed in a cold storage—transportation; that is equally business.
"We can easily take those animal skins to make shoes, handbags, belts, and turn our locality to China and export.
"We are not going to cry; feel sorry for ourselves; relinquish our responsibility because we are thinkers and doers; we will convert it to prosperity. Believe me and believe Buhari," he said.
The APC national leaders told the groups that the opposition would ask them what the Buhari government had achieved.
He said that their response should be that the administration had diversified the economy; more farmers were making money and Nigeria was no longer importing rice.
Tinubu said that the groups should also talk about the achievements in rail transportation.
The highlight of the event was the unveiling of a digital portal for advocacy and for showcasing the achievements of the Buhari-led government.


text:
Books By John Lister
Pro Wrestling Books
Wrestling With Words
Release Schedule (15 May)
Release Schedule / May 15, 2019
15 July: Cody Heart of the Mountain (The Elite Team) by Cody Runnels & Sam Weisz 16 July: 100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Bryan Alvarez 6 August: There's No Such Thing As a Bad Kid: How I Went from Stereotype to Prototype by Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neill) & Paul Guzzo 6 August: Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain – Real Pro Wrestling Stories by Jim Cornette & Brandon Easton 6 August: The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers (From the Terrible Turk to Twitter) by Greg Oliver & Steven Johnson 1 September: Thumbelina, Wrestling Champ: A Graphic Novel (Far Out Fairy Tales) by Alberto Rayo & Alex Lopez 3 September: Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story by Rocky Johnson & Scott Teal 3 September: WWE 35 Years of Wrestlemania by Brian Shields & Dean Miller 10 September: Life Is Short and So Am I: My Life In and Out of the Wrestling Ring by Dylan "Hornswoggle" Postl! 3 October: Job Man: My Life in Professional Wrestling by Chris Multerer & Larry Widen 29 October: GLOW: Vs The Star Primas by Tini Howard 5 November: For Your Consideration: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson by Tres…
Release Schedule (8 May)
Release Schedule / May 8, 2019
One new entry this week, an updated re-release of a 1998 title, Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle, Second Edition by Sharon Mazer Professional wrestling is one of the most popular performance practices in the United States and around the world, drawing millions of spectators to live events and televised broadcasts. The displays of violence, simulated and actual, may be the obvious appeal, but that is just the beginning. Fans debate performance choices with as much energy as they argue about their favorite wrestlers. The ongoing scenarios and presentations of manly and not-so-manly characters―from the flamboyantly feminine to the hypermasculine―simultaneously celebrate and critique, parody and affirm the American dream and the masculine ideal. Sharon Mazer looks at the world of professional wrestling from a fan's-eye-view high in the stands and from ringside in the wrestlers' gym. She investigates how performances are constructed and sold to spectators, both on a local level and in the "big leagues" of the WWF/E. She shares a close-up view of a group of wrestlers as they work out, get their faces pushed to the mat as part of their initiation into the fraternity of the ring, and dream of stardom. In later chapters, Mazer explores professional…
7 May: Self Help: Life Lessons from the Bizarre Wrestling Career of Al Snow by Al Snow & Ross Owen Williams 7 May: WWE SmackDown 20 Years and Counting by Dean Miller & Jake Black 7 May: An Encyclopedia of Women's Wrestling: 100 Profiles of the Strongest in the Sport by LaToya Ferguson 15 July: Cody Heart of the Mountain (The Elite Team) by Cody Runnels & Sam Weisz 16 July: 100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Bryan Alvarez 6 August: There's No Such Thing As a Bad Kid: How I Went from Stereotype to Prototype by Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neill) & Paul Guzzo 6 August: Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain – Real Pro Wrestling Stories by Jim Cornette & Brandon Easton 6 August: The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers (From the Terrible Turk to Twitter) by Greg Oliver & Steven Johnson 1 September: Thumbelina, Wrestling Champ: A Graphic Novel (Far Out Fairy Tales) by Alberto Rayo & Alex Lopez 3 September: Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story by Rocky Johnson & Scott Teal 3 September: WWE 35 Years of Wrestlemania by Brian Shields & Dean Miller 10 September: Life Is Short…
Release Schedule (24 April)
Release Schedule / April 24, 2019
One new entry this week, Job Man: My Life in Professional Wrestling by Chris Multerer & Larry Widen: Milwaukee-native Chris Multerer wrestled for more than a decade, starting in 1978, on professional circuits around the United States. As a "job man," Multerer made the superstars of wrestling, such as Mad Dog Vachon and Hulk Hogan, shine. In cities around the country, thousands of screaming fans cheered when their favorite wrestlers pinned and punished Multerer in a variety of painful ways. In Job Man, Multerer, along with his friend Larry Widen, shows what life was like for wrestlers outside the spotlight. Long nights on the road, thoughtful takes on some the biggest personalities in the business, and, perhaps most of all, a love for the sport, are as much a part of Multerer's revealing and remarkable story as his time in the ring. 7 May: Self Help: Life Lessons from the Bizarre Wrestling Career of Al Snow by Al Snow & Ross Owen Williams 7 May: WWE SmackDown 20 Years and Counting by Dean Miller & Jake Black 7 May: An Encyclopedia of Women's Wrestling: 100 Profiles of the Strongest in the Sport by LaToya Ferguson 15 July: Cody Heart of…
Two new entries this week, starting with Thumbelina, Wrestling Champ: A Graphic Novel (Far Out Fairy Tales) by Alberto Rayo & Alex Lopez: Tania "Thumbelina" Pulgar may be small, but she's fierce in the wrestling ring. When her friend Jorge "The Mouse" Mendoza introduces her to a manager named Mr. Mole, she's promised a pro career full of fame and fortune. But soon Thumbelina is miserable as she's dragged from match to match and forced into a flashy new persona that just isn't a good fit. Can the little wrestler break free of Mr. Mole's hold and live her own life? Experience Hans Christian Andersen's classic like never before in this graphic novel retelling for kids. Each Far Out Fairy Tales adventure includes info on the original tale, a guide to the story's twists, and visual discussion questions to critically engage readers. Smackdown Town by Max Nicoll & Matt Smith: A boy's wish to be a star wrestler is granted in this wacky middle-grade fantasy Ollie and his older brother, Hollis, have wrestling in their blood: Their mom was a pro whose dreams of stardom were dashed by a devious opponent. Now she's an overworked, underpaid ref at Smackdown Town,…
Release Schedule (3 April)
Release Schedule / April 3, 2019
6 April: Convergent Wrestling: Participatory Culture, Transmedia Storytelling, and Intertextuality in the Squared Circle (The Cultural Politics of Media and Popular Culture) by CarrieLynn D. Reinhard (Editor), Christopher J. Olson 7 May: Self Help: Life Lessons from the Bizarre Wrestling Career of Al Snow by Al Snow & Ross Owen Williams 7 May: WWE SmackDown 20 Years and Counting by Dean Miller & Jake Black 7 May: An Encyclopedia of Women's Wrestling: 100 Profiles of the Strongest in the Sport by LaToya Ferguson 15 July: Cody Heart of the Mountain (The Elite Team) by Cody Runnels & Sam Weisz 16 July: 100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Bryan Alvarez 6 August: There's No Such Thing As a Bad Kid: How I Went from Stereotype to Prototype by Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neill) & Paul Guzzo 6 August: Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain – Real Pro Wrestling Stories by Jim Cornette & Brandon Easton 6 August: The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers (From the Terrible Turk to Twitter) by Greg Oliver & Steven Johnson 3 September: Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story by Rocky Johnson & Scott Teal 3 September: WWE 35 Years of…
Release Schedule (27 March)
Release Schedule / March 27, 2019
A big batch of new entries this week starting with The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers (From the Terrible Turk to Twitter) by Greg Oliver & Steven Johnson: The legendary storytellers worthy of a spot in the pro wrestling hall of fame You can't escape pro wrestling today, even if you want to. Its stars are ubiquitous in movies, TV shows, product endorsements, swag, and social media to the point that they are as much celebrities as they are athletes. Pro wrestling has morphed from the fringes of acceptability to a global $1 billion industry that plays an everyday role in 21st-century pop culture. In The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers (from the Terrible Turk to Twitter), Greg Oliver and Steven Johnson explain how the sport's unique take on storytelling has fueled its remarkable expansion. Based on hundreds of interviews and original accounts, Oliver and Johnson describe the imaginative ways in which wrestlers and promoters have used monkeys, murderers, smelt, and wedding cakes to put butts in seats and encourage clicks, likes, and swipes across countless screens. As they trace the evolution of wrestling storytelling, Oliver and Johnson take readers on a winding journey from the New York…
25 March: Convergent Wrestling: Participatory Culture, Transmedia Storytelling, and Intertextuality in the Squared Circle (The Cultural Politics of Media and Popular Culture) by CarrieLynn D. Reinhard (Editor), Christopher J. Olson 7 May: Self Help: Life Lessons from the Bizarre Wrestling Career of Al Snow by Al Snow & Ross Owen Williams 7 May: WWE SmackDown 20 Years and Counting by Dean Miller & Jake Black 7 May: An Encyclopedia of Women's Wrestling: 100 Profiles of the Strongest in the Sport by LaToya Ferguson 15 July: Cody Heart of the Mountain (The Elite Team) by Cody Runnels & Sam Weisz 16 July: 100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Bryan Alvarez 6 August: There's No Such Thing As a Bad Kid: How I Went from Stereotype to Prototype by Thaddeus Bullard (Titus O'Neill) & Paul Guzzo 6 August: Jim Cornette Presents: Behind the Curtain – Real Pro Wrestling Stories by Jim Cornette & Brandon Easton 3 September: Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story by Rocky Johnson & Scott Teal 3 September: WWE 35 Years of Wrestlemania by Brian Shields & Dean Miller
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Release Schedule (22 January)
A Quick Site Update
Kendo Nagasaki and the Man Behind The Mask by Peter Thornley
Self Help by Al Snow
Wrestling Noir: Real In Memphis by Stevie Pearson
Jason Presley on Eggshells: Pro Wrestling In The Tokyo Dome by Chris Charlton
AW on Death of the Territories by Tim Hornbaker
AW on Mad Dogs, Midgets and Screw Jobs: The Untold Story of How Montreal Shaped the World of Wrestling by Pat Laprade and Bertrand Hebert
AW on Wrestling at the Chase: The Inside Story of Sam Muchnick and the Legends of Professional Wrestling by Larry Matysik
AW on Foley Is Good by Mick Foley

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Majority of Flies, Flying Insects in Hospitals Carry Harmful Bacteria, Study Reveals
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Switzerland Mints World's Smallest Gold Coin with Einstein Smirking on It
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The study says that more than half of the insects carry bacteria strains that are known as 'superbugs' that are resistant to antibiotics.
Trending Desk
Buzzing flies and wavering insects in hospitals are never a welcome sight. Patients often complain that the flying insects and flies are a nuisance, landing on medicines and food, while they generally give off a sense of unhygienic conditions that could critically affect a patient's health while they are in the hospital.
And now a new study, published June 21, in the Journal of Medical Entomology now claims that a majority of flies and flying insects in hospitals could be carriers of bacteria that could pose an infection risk to patients.
The study says that more than half of the insects carry bacteria strains that are known as 'superbugs' that are resistant to antibiotics. The study found that Penicillin was the least effective antibiotic against the bacteria that was found.
Speaking about the study, lead author PhD student Federica Boiocchi, an Aston University student said that the results of the analysis show that a variety of flying insects collected from hospitals harbour pathogenic bacteria of different species, adding, "What's quite interesting, though, is the high proportion of drug-resistant bacteria found in these samples. It's a vivid reminder of how our over-use of antibiotics in healthcare settings is making infections more difficult to treat."
Interestingly, 86 bacterial strains were identified on or in the insects, with the family that includes E.Coli and salmonella being the most common at 41 per cent.
The researchers used ultraviolet-light flytraps, electronic fly killers and sticky traps to collect nearly 20,000 flies, aphids, ants, wasps, bees and moths at seven hospitals in England over 18 months. The found almost 9 in 10 insects had harmful bacteria.
Researchers found that in some cases, the level of bacteria was enough to cause infections in humans, thus coming to the conclusion that hospitals do harbour pathogenic bacteria of different species.
The researchers came to the conclusion that despite the cleanest of environments, it is pertinent to take steps to prevent bacteria being brought into hospitals by insects.
bacteria strains
electronic fly killers
Got Your Windows 10 For Free? German Govt Didn't, And Will Cost Them $887,000
Investment-starved Ukraine Plans 'Nanny' for Wealthy Foreigners Who Pump in More Than $100 Million


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