Biomedicine & Disease
How to assess the real safety risks of getting a COVID vaccine shot
It seems like we might have a vaccine on the way and some of this madness will stop. But, like everything ...
Validating full safety of vaccines might take months but effectiveness judgements likely soon
The global campaign to identify effective vaccines against COVID-19 has entered the final stage of testing for regulatory approval—Phase III ...
Viewpoint: Uganda battles anti-GMO, anti-vaccine coalition agitating against COVID-19 immunization
A handful of activist groups are now working in tandem to undermine Uganda’s plans to inoculate its population against the ...
COVID vaccine ‘bio-factories’: Step-by-step look at how GMO tobacco plants could help end the pandemic
Two biotech companies are using the tobacco plant, Nicotiana benthamiana, as bio-factories to produce a key protein from the coronavirus ...
Slideshow: Canine COVID detectors soon may be coming to an airport or business near you
There are various ongoing efforts to train sniffer dogs to detect covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. If dogs prove to be reliable in detecting ...
Conflicting studies on effectiveness of Trump’s favorite drug – remdesivir – in battling COVID? Let’s disentangle this controversy
[One New England Journal of Medicine study tells] us that remdesivir works in the fight against COVID-19. A few days later, ...
Vaccine chaos: Doses likely released first are the hardest to deploy
[T]he COVID-19 vaccine will be a whole new challenge. “The COVID situation is significantly different and more complex than anything ...
Can ancient potions treat COVID? Short on modern medicine, Peru’s indigenous groups give them a try
The coronavirus pandemic’s ruthless march through Peru — the country with the world’s highest per-population confirmed COVID-19 mortality rate — ...
Final weeks to approval: NIH’s Anthony Fauci and FDA’s Peter Marks on what’s ahead before we can expect a safe COVID vaccine
As tens of thousands of people participate in phase 3 clinical trials on COVID-19 vaccine candidates, the focus is turning ...
Video: Breaking the COVID genetic code: How genetic data revealed a secret coronavirus outbreak
The coronavirus mutates as it moves through its victims. Infectious particles swabbed from a patient’s nose carry small but distinctive differences ...
It’s not going away: We need a real, non-political debate about the best way to live with COVID or countries will fracture
In 1968, at the height of the last great influenza pandemic, at least a million people worldwide died, including 100,000 ...
Podcast: From Philadelphia to Baltimore—Tales of Chromosomes, Cancer Cells and Henrietta Lacks
In this episode we’re taking a road trip from Philadelphia to Baltimore, exploring stories of chromosomal cut-and-paste, cancer cures and ...
Trump’s treatments primer: Regeneron antibodies and Gilead’s Remdesivir
[After Trump’s COVID diagnosis,] his treatment began with a leading drug candidate, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ two-antibody combination or “cocktail,” REGN-COV2. Within ...
Infographic: 5 different ways COVID vaccines work
COVID vaccine hesitancy is on the rise, perhaps in the wake of pressure to speed approval beyond scientific reason. But I think ...
How Alaska set up a gold standard COVID testing operation
As the coronavirus pandemic surged across the U.S. this spring, Alaska faced a raft of unique obstacles. Despite the hurdles, Alaska was ...
Video: Vaccine expert Paul Offit talks with Medscape’s Eric Topol on the pitfalls and promise of COVID ‘Operation Warp Speed’
[Editor's note: This interview can be watched in full at Medscape. Watch it here. Read a transcript of the interview ...
How COVID-19 resembles a sexually transmitted disease
Viruses walk a fine line between severity and transmissibility. If they are too virulent, they kill or incapacitate their hosts; ...
Out-of-the-box vaccine candidate: Nasal drops of a very slow-growing, synthetic-biology developed version of COVID. It just might work
[S]ynthetic biology has led to a way to create a weakened form of the pandemic coronavirus that causes covid-19. Although ...
‘Everything smells like a more disgusting version of Spaghetti O’s’: Recovered COVID patients report awful phantom smells
Instead of a scentless world, an increasing number of people who lost their sense of smell because of Covid-19 are ...
