Lung transplants can be lifesaving for patients with end-stage lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis, COPD, pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, and pulmonary hypertension…
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post Converting Donor Lungs to Universal Blood Type O Could Boost Organ SupplyRead more
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post COVID Complacency: Warnings from Invasion, Station Eleven, and a Research ReportRead more
When Mark Twain wrote “Truth is stranger than fiction,” he wasn’t imagining people watching tales of an alien invasion and a pandemic…
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post Yellow Mealworm Genome Sequence May Ease Farming Insects for FoodRead more
I have a special fondness for the yellow mealworm, Tenebrio molitor. As a child, I fed the mealworm stage of this beetle…
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post Omicron Evolves and the Covidization of Scientific PublishingRead more
Just as we thought Omicron was rolling across the US and into oblivion, a new “subvariant” has arrived and is, again, taking…
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post DNA in Strange Places: Hippo Poop, Zoo Air, and Cave DirtRead more
Many years ago, a dear friend took me to the Detroit zoo to see the Hippoquarium. Much to my delight, the resident…
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post Pandemic Predictions Take a Turn Towards the Positive – FinallyRead more
An end may be in sight. For the first time since the pandemic began, I listened to a press briefing from medical…
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post Please Help My Liberian “Son” Achieve his Dream as an Infectious Disease PhysicianRead more
For many years I’ve ended editions of my human genetics textbook with a request for students to email me to share their…
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post Sandy From the Mountains Dies, Leaving a Message to the UnvaxxedRead more
Five days ago, Sandy’s husband allowed the staff in the ICU to turn off her life support, and COVID claimed yet another…
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post Pandemic Too Fast to Follow as Three Waves of Infection Wash Over the US: Delta, Omicron, and FluRead more
Next Tuesday, December 21, marks two years since the China CDC Weekly acknowledged the first “cluster of pneumonia cases with an unknown…
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post How Watson and Crick Predicted the Origin of Omicron and Laid the Groundwork for COVID-19 VaccinesRead more
The tantalizing final sentence to James Watson and Francis Crick’s landmark 1953 paper in Nature introducing the genetic material, DNA, is almost…
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post Progress in Treating Genetic Disease: Dwarfism, Inborn Errors, Immune Deficiencies, and a Clotting DisorderRead more
It’s been nearly a decade since my book The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It, was published. The…
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post Menkes Disease Treatment on the Horizon, After Nearly Three DecadesRead more
Headlines often trumpet the latest in gene editing, RNA drugs, or gene therapy. The less buzzy, but more classic strategy of providing…