Week of November 6, 2023
I've traveled to five cities on six trips in the last three weeks. The most recent trip (to the American Society of Nephrology annual conference) was more meaningful than anticipated - science updates and reconnecting with many friends. Healthcare jobs present many tradeoffs, and it is easy to be cynical - moments of shared enthusiasm with colleagues and mentors are surprisingly energizing.
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The U.S.'s 14-day hospitalization rate (hospitalizations per 100,000) is still trending downward. The CDC no longer reports case rates, but the wastewater RNA concentrations are starting to rise, again pointing to community spread that is not resulting in severe illness or death (thanks to prior infection and vaccine immunity).
The N.Y. Times COVID Tracker reflects only CDC-gathered hospital data. Hospitalization data are a (lagging) indicator of COVID spread.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/us/covid-cases.html
Wastewater monitoring is more of a LEADING indicator.
The Inside Medicine COVID dashboard
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COVID articles
Amongst the various "lessons learned" from COVID, clean air (by mask, air filtration, or both) seems to be the most valuable non-vaccine intervention. Here is a recent selection of articles:
CBS's 60 Minutes interviews Lindsey Marr, Virginia Tech aerosol scientist, about air filtration, masks and mitigating airborne illnesses:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-mask-effectiveness-what-science-knows-now-60-minutes/
The EPA demonstrated that UConn Engineering School's homemade air filtration devices (AKA Corsi-Rosenthal boxes) effectively remove aerosolized coronavirus.
https://today.uconn.edu/2023/10/epa-testing-shows-the-power-of-d-i-y-air-filters-to-trap-viruses/
JAMA published a communication summarizing numerous studies demonstrating that masks reduce COVID spread.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2811136
and
https://twitter.com/abraarkaran/status/1719754663808131468?s=42&t=cHtDhpWgAdi0UhIayqsoag
Medical Trends and Technology
The American Society of Nephrology's 2023 annual meeting featured a keynote talk by Dr. Bonnie Bassler (https://molbio.princeton.edu/people/bonnie-l-bassler), who researches quorum sensing amongst microorganisms. Quorum sensing is how bacteria and viruses "talk" to each other, understand their environment, and coordinate behavior - allowing individual organisms to act as a community. At the highest level, her lab explores how viruses and bacteria demonstrate math and logic (reading the concentration and patterns of signal molecules). In addition, disrupting this communication offers novel treatments for infectious diseases. Dr. Bassler is a fantastic teacher, and her research is fascinating - showing the complexity and nuance of nature. Dr. Bassler gave a similar talk at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) last year - it is on YouTube. I strongly recommend spending the 22 minutes it takes to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QqJHgcVCnA
The FDA has approved the first commercial CRISPR-based therapy for human use - to treat sickle cell disease. The issues raised - access to care, the treatment burden, cost, and the potential for unintended consequences observed when the therapy is scaled - are fascinating. The N.Y. Times article is very well-written.
Apple appears closer to releasing blood pressure and sleep apnea monitoring on the iWatch - likely in 2025.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-watch-2024-blood-pressure-sleep-apnea-detection-news/
Infographics
The chemistry of candy corn. Fondant + frappe = the fruit cake of Halloween (you give it out, but don't eat it). Candy companies produce 9 billion pieces of candy corn each year - at least one for every human on earth.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9x2Ks4WYAAvwbv?format=jpg
Things I learned this week
If you land in Prague in the next 12 months, check out the 3D, force-perspective portrait of Vaclav Havel made of items from his life and times. The work is an installation of the Illusion Art Museum.
https://twitter.com/ian_willoughby/status/1720838316411564134
Peter Jackson used his A.I. tools (from the 2021 Get Back documentary) to extract John Lennon's voice from recordings made in the late 1970s. Working with Ringo and Paul (and using work George Harrison did before he died), Jackson was able to help the Beatles release their last song, Now and Then.
Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opxhh9Oh3rg
Making of video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APJAQoSCwuA
Living with A.I.
Dr. Eric Topol interviews James Zou, a Stanford University professor applying A.I. to life science research - everything from genomics to clinical practice. His comments on how LLMs are evolving are illuminating.
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/james-zou-one-of-the-most-prolific.
Dr. Zou's recent work includes using a closed LLM to provide peer-review comments on biological science papers. The goal is to allow researchers to improve their drafts before submission to conferences or journals. Zou's team found concordance between the LLM and human reviewers' comments and that authors were satisfied with the LLM comments on their writing.
https://hai.stanford.edu/news/researchers-use-gpt-4-generate-feedback-scientific-manuscripts
A.I.-generated text-to-art of the week
"A cartoon of a phage, an e coli bacteria, and a spirochete eating candy corn and talking to each other on a petri dish."
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17KgNJafO2AhltBXKKRv7XlTjtNeUXaec/view?usp=sharing
Condiis!
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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