The latest craze on TikTok with over 31M views is called #underconsumptioncore. This long and unwieldy phrase ironically champions/romanticizes an ethos of minimalism, make-do-and-mend, and less is more at a time when prices and rents are up, many live paycheck-to-paycheck, and recession fears loom. According to a GenZer we know and Dictionary.com, the suffix “core”, tacked on to any word or phrase, refers to a trend, vibe, niche, or aesthetic —hence the use of buzzy buzzwords like “normcore”, “balletcore” and “animecore” etc. that describe or center around ordinariness/lack of flash, ballet, and anime, respectively. In one “underconsumption core” video, TikTokker @sophie_hinn proudly shows off her thrifted, gifted, hand-made, or hand-me-down items.
The essence of underconsumption core at EpicentRx is lead therapy, AdAPT-001, an oncolytic adenovirus, which, owing to selective self-replication in tumors, copies or amplifies the original input dose and the transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) trap that it carries by many thousand-fold and possibly more.
As an adenovirus, AdAPT-001 is as pared-down and as efficient as possible — call it “adaptcore” — after billions of years Darwinian evolution honed and molded adenoviruses to do one thing and one thing well: infect cells, replicate in them, and release its offspring through lysis. From the repetition of this infection-replication-lysis-and-release cycle in neighboring cancer cells exponential amplification occurs. This exponential self-amplification, in turn, hopefully attracts and triggers immune cells, especially when AdAPT-001 is combined with an immune checkpoint inhibitor, to come in and finish the anticancer job that AdAPT-001 started.
Now we call that hard core.