Ricki Lewis
Is Prevagen the ‘silver bullet’ supplement to treat Alzheimer’s disease? Distinguishing hope from hype in the battle against cognitive decline
The avalanche of TV ads for Prevagen that coincided with my reaching Medicare age has inspired me to investigate what’s ...
What our embattled world looks like through the ‘eyes’ of SARS-CoV-2
I’m tired of writing about COVID from a geneticist’s point of view, so I thought I’d let a virus speak ...
Incurable Huntington’s disease? microRNA offers hope in the wake of failed clinical trials
A recent DNA Science post considered the ebb and flow of treatment possibilities for Alzheimer’s disease. This week, it’s Huntington’s disease. Like ...
Good and bad news: What we know about vaccines and containing COVID variants
Glimmers of hope are beginning to shine through the gloom of the past year. That was evident in a recent ...
The age of genetically-enhanced children is approaching. Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro imagines a have-and-have not future, and it’s not pleasant
Biotech interventions to help sick children—like gene therapy—are approached with supreme caution. If a treatment has a reasonable chance of ...
Debating the possible origins of COVID-19: A lab-escaped bioweapon? Animal poop? Random mutations of an existing virus?
“Virus outbreak: research says COVID-19 likely synthetic,” shouted the headline in the Taipei Times on February 23, 2020. The idea ...
Would you agree to be infected with COVID for science? Intentional ‘challenge’ studies underway as researchers explore new vaccines and treatments
Lauren Thomas, who just turned 26, is trying to get into a clinical trial at the University of Oxford, where ...
Anxious about getting a COVID vaccine because you don’t know what’s in it? We know a lot more about it than the safety of hot dogs
“So, you’ve been eatin’ hot dogs and chicken nuggets all your life and you don’t want the vaccine ‘cuz you ...
When the faster-spreading and more virulent COVID-19 mutant came to my home town, it shook up everyone. Here’s an explainer of what it foreshadows
When a new variant of the COVID-19 virus appeared in the UK as 2020 drew to a close, I didn’t ...
A dangerous stage in the evolution of the novel coronavirus is upon us with the discovery of “escape mutations”. Artificial intelligence may be our best response
Real life with COVID-19 is now scarier than anything a sci-fi writer could envision. So-called “escape mutations” that can turn ...
Marketers are beginning to use data mined from consumer DNA tests. Should we be worried?
A woman lingers at a display of coffeemakers. Soon after, images of the very same contraptions festoon her Facebook feed, ...
Do you want to eat turkey or be the turkey: Reflect on this before you host a large gathering for Thanksgiving
My blog posts around Thanksgiving are predictably dull: Turkey Genetics 101, The Peaceable Genomes of Pumpkins. But 2020 is like no ...
When it comes to COVID, nurture trumps nature – so far
In the early weeks of the pandemic, as patients overwhelmed New York City hospitals, the clinical characteristics of the most ...
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 ...
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 ...
‘Challenge studies’: Should we be testing COVID vaccines by intentionally infecting volunteers?
To those who’ve never thought about volunteering to be intentionally infected to test a vaccine, the idea may at first ...
Gene therapy for hemophilia delayed until 2022 after FDA rejects one-time treatment, shocking doctors and scientists
U.S. regulators rejected [Biomarin’s] potentially game-changing hemophilia A gene therapy over concerns it might not really be a one-and-done lifetime ...
Vaccine ‘durability’: COVID-19 immunizations coming soon but will they last?
As the days unfold with a seeming sameness in this odd summer of the pandemic, news of vaccine clinical trials ...
Rare genetic disorder homocystinuria can cause strokes, seizures and death. A ‘genetic glitch’ in blind cavefish offers hope for a treatment
The discovery of a gene behind the absence of eyes in Mexican cavefish may suggest a new way to treat ...
The Three Stooges illustrate why coronavirus-fighting ‘antibody cocktails’ could help contain the virus well before a vaccine
“You imbecile!” bellowed Moe Howard as he stuck a finger up the nose of Curly. Moe the bully would often ...
Coronavirus immunity passports could create a world of ‘us and them’. But here’s why they make sense
Dividing groups of people into “us” and “them” isn’t usually a good idea, but in the scary new world of ...
The tricky path for using stem cells to treat coronavirus-ravaged lungs
The coronavirus pandemic has unleashed a wave of repurposing efforts, from old malaria drugs prescribed off-label to anti-virals stalled in ...
Quest for coronavirus treatment inspires modern twist on antique technique using survivors’ plasma
There's no shortage of research efforts looking for ways to stop, or at least slow down, the novel coronavirus. Of ...
‘At home’ coronavirus test? How CRISPR could change the way we search for COVID-19
If we take the advice of health experts, we won't be attempting a return to normal life in the US ...
Can genetics explain the degrees of misery inflicted by the coronavirus?
“The single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet is the virus.” Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Prize in Physiology ...
‘Designed to be slow’: Why these coronavirus vaccines in the pipeline won’t be ready this year
New York City has become a curious mosaic of crowds and barrenness, people packed into hospitals and homes, yet familiar ...
‘Sophie’s Choice’ in the time of coronavirus: Deciding who gets the ventilator
Three otherwise healthy patients go to the emergency department with severe acute respiratory failure. Only one ventilator, required to sustain ...
In pursuit of coronavirus treatments and why we need to be cautious
It's impossible to keep up with entries at ClinicalTrials.gov that include the search term “COVID-19.” Last week when I posted Can ...
