Week of August 26, 2024
We take child #2 (of 2) for his first year of college this week. The vibe in our house has rapid-cycled between the sentiments of a celebration of life event and the excitement of getting a new puppy.
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Very high COVID transmission rates right now.
https://x.com/clarichawrites/status/1827182271301812408
and
https://x.com/COVID19_disease/status/1826975765155742078
and
https://x.com/JPWeiland/status/1827806665644671105
The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) website uses wastewater levels to forecast 4-week predictions of COVID rates.
https://pmc19.com/data/
based upon https://biobot.io/data/
Wastewater Scan offers a multi-organism wastewater dashboard with an excellent visual display of individual treatment plant-level data.
https://data.wastewaterscan.org/
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COVID articles
The FDA approved updated Pfizer and Moderna's mRNA vaccines last week, with deliveries expected in pharmacies this week. Given current transmission rates, I advise (most) patients to get these as soon as possible.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/08/22/new-coronavirus-vaccine-covid/
and
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/fda-approves-fall-covid-19-boosters
The FDA requested additional information about Novavax's protein-based vaccine, which is delaying approval.
https://x.com/friesein/status/1827326733445402927?s=61&t=qjwdpjspQGX7XGY5jdBzKw
The CDC has issued new guidelines requiring hospitals to report information about COVID-19, influenza, and RSV starting November 1, 2024. You will recall the previous CDC reporting requirements expired in the spring of 2024, leaving only wastewater RNA and DNA concentrations as the "least bad" monitoring tool.
https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/updated-hospital-reporting-requirements-for-respiratory-viruses.html
Medical Trends and Technology
Andrew Pannu is a biotech journalist. His recent overview of the gene therapy space was enlightening with a dense but well-made infographic: "The U.S. has approved 11 gene therapies across ten indications. Four of these therapies were approved in the last 18 months, indicative of early investments in the space starting to bear fruit."
https://x.com/andrewpannu/status/1825529169436086691
The combination of AI and proteomics seems promising; however, understanding protein location and function is critical for any potential proteomic therapy. Chinese researchers recently published a fantastic review paper on spatial proteomics - the techniques used to map where in a cell or tissue various proteins are located and how their locations change in various physiologic conditions. Eric Topol offers a brief review of the paper as well.
Paper
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00834-1
and
Review
https://x.com/EricTopol/status/1826643895381557583/photo/2
A loyal reader shared this N.Y. Times article highlighting the use of A.I. to create individualized algorithms in the software of deep-brain stimulators used to mitigate some cases of Parkinson's disease. The article highlights a now 49-year-old skateboarder who experienced early-onset Parkinson's. Thanks to adaptive deep-brain stimulation, he can still skateboard - "Under conventional deep-brain stimulation, patients receive a constant level of electrical pulses. While it helps most patients, many eventually reach a plateau or, because the therapy does not adjust to a patient's experience, the stimulation may be too much or too little and lead to drastic swings between periods of rigidity and unbridled motion."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/19/health/parkinsons-brain-pacemaker.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Fk4.mxHM.ooyvjAV9Tz7a&smid=url-share
Infographics
Your 1-octen-3-ol may be very appealing (to biting insects).
https://x.com/compoundchem/status/1825982822395297891/photo/1
Things I learned this week
I was disappointed to learn the various videos I see on Instagram highlighting a "German game show dedicated to evenly cutting things in half" are not real. The notion that Germans would have such a game show sounded so plausible.
https://gizmodo.com/sorry-there-is-no-german-tv-show-dedicated-to-cutting-1851275567
A strange convergence of topics manifests in an article I read this week. In the last few days:
1) I helped my younger son pick his first college courses,
2) in the process, I recalled the overly academic college papers I wrote for an art history class.
3) I Re-watched the movie Goodfellas
4) causing me to Google the name of the shirt collars worn by the mob guys in the movie. (They are called giant spearpoint collars, FYI.)
Thus, I learned GQ published an article about Joe Pesci, his love of the spearpoint collar, and the revival of mafia-style menswear thanks to Martin Scorsese movies. The article is informative and evocative of the hyper-analytical writing from a college art class. But who amongst us hasn't written a college essay about Joe Pesci?
https://www.gq.com/story/joe-pesci-collars
New York Presbyterian Hospital maintains a Spotify playlist with 100 beats per minute songs entitled "Songs to do CPR to." Someone must conduct a trial examining which songs on this list are most associated with patients regaining a spontaneous pulse. The obvious hypothesis would point to the BeeGee's Stayin' Alive or the Back Street Boys Quit Playing Games (with my heart)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7oJx24EcRU7fIVoTdqKscK?si=nULlZBPoRWCWkGEg5XNqgg&pi=u-u6Ydu4DZR0CC
https://x.com/em_resus/status/1827487486811021640
Living with A.I.
I'm finding an increasing number of articles discussing how to get the most out of generative AI. In this case, an article on teachers' use of generative AI. Once again, using these tools as "intellectual copilots" at various stages of lesson planning and course work (rather than only limited use or no use at all) resulted in observable productivity gains. "We conduct interviews, observations, and surveys at different points in time to understand their evolving generative AI use. In fall 2023, all teachers were novice users or had never tried generative AI. By spring 2024, the teachers separate into three distinct groups: (1) those who seek generative AI input (i.e., thoughts or ideas about learning plans) and output (i.e., quizzes, worksheets), (2) those who only seek generative AI outputs, and (3) those not using generative AI. The teachers in the first group-but not the second group-report productivity gains in terms of workload and work quality. Our findings have implications for understanding how to integrate generative AI into backward, goal-oriented workflows."
https://x.com/emollick/status/1826052740143079584
and
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4924786
A.I. art of the week (A visual mashup of topics from the newsletter).
Generate a picture of a mob boss-looking individual (wearing a nice suit, shirt with spear point collars, a tie) performing CPR on a mosquito. They are in a lab environment surrounded by machines and equipment for scientific experiments.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NcMtcJigB8Xn5ImV7B3BimmBnqT5z7Y8/view?usp=sharing
Clean hands and sharp minds,
Adam
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