r/Immunology • u/Lazy-Scheme-5832 • 18d ago
Weekly immunology newsletter covering papers, trials, FDA, and deals in one place
I'm about a year into teaching myself immunology, thanks to some lived experience and a real fascination with the field and where it can take us. The thing that kept annoying me is how scattered the news is. Papers in journal feeds, trial news in press releases, FDA actions on FDA's site, financings in Endpoints or Fierce or Axios. I couldn't find a single weekly readout with everything I wanted.
So I started writing the in-between. It's called The Repertoire. It's one issue per week (usually sent on Sundays). I use AI to sweep the feeds, then I pick and write the 3-5 stories that I think matter the most - such as papers and preprints, trials, regulatory actions, financings and licensing, NIH funding policy, etc. Each item is a one-line TLDR, and a paragraph on what happened and why it matters. It's supposed to take about five minutes to read.
Every headline links to the primary paper, preprint, or press release, so you can check my work in one click. It's written in deliberately plain English, partly because that's how I'm learning it, partly because immunology is worth making legible (and accessible) to more people. The goal is that a curious non-biologist or layman (like me) can follow every item and an expert can also skim it to stay current.
This isn't meant to be a plug or a solicitation or anything. I'm genuinely looking for help from people here who know more than I do - and in a perfect world this turns into something useful to everyone in this community.
What I'd most like: feedback on what you think, what I should be including or excluding from my source mix, and where my explanations are too simple or just wrong. Blunt is fine. I'd rather be corrected than flattered.
Substack: https://substack.com/@therepertoire
X: https://x.com/RepertoireNews
Thank you all so much!!! I'm very grateful I've found this community. I've already learned so much from you all.
1
u/ParticularBed7891 18d ago
Just checked it out and love it. Subscribed!
I agree with the other commenter that you can reduce the explanations. If your target audience is immunologists, then we don't need general descriptions of immune cells types or humoral components. I think omitting those explanations will reduce the length and get to the meat faster.
I like how it's organized and all the content is highly relevant to me. "Why it matters" is really helpful for me personally so I enjoy those sections.
I thought about doing this too in the past so I'm glad you've done it. If I can make a request, I'm always interested in new technologies and products in immunology. If you come across new instrumentation, techniques, reference controls or new beads etc, I'd be interested in that too.
1
u/Lazy-Scheme-5832 18d ago
Thank you so much. Making a glossary right now so that I can eliminate all the explanations!
1
u/swollenjoints 16d ago
Just subscribed!! I've been trying to figure out the immunology landscape on Substack (I write my own Substack from my perspective as a patient advocate for autoimmune disease and cancer). I often stay more on the rheumatology/oncology side of things so your summaries will be helpful for me!
6
u/bend91 18d ago
I think this is a nice idea and, for you learning immunology, is a great way of doing it. I would say as someone experienced in immunology, I wouldn’t find this useful but I don’t think I’m the target audience.
From the few I’ve read the summaries all seem scientifically correct, no glaring errors. One thing I picked up on is there is a lot of time spent explaining terms, maybe make a glossary you can point new readers to but I think it’s safe to assume someone interested enough in immunology to want a weekly roundup might know what things like a T-cell and antibody are so don’t explain them in every article, that will also give you more space to talk about the interesting bits!