White House
Whole lot of news coverage around President Trump and his Covid diagnosis so no need to belabor it here, but the Wednesday morning press release from his white house doctor was interesting. There were two head-shakers in that very small release.
1) Trump felt good
Anyone who has ever been on strong corticosteroids as Trump is, should know, yeah, that's what steroids do - make you feel good. Sometimes real good - drugs can do amazing things in the short term. But it doesn't mean you're any better; steroids are often just a short-term trick we play on the body. Also, Dexamethasone is known to have a pret-tay, pret-tay rough crash, so stay tuned on that.
2) Covid-neutralizing antibodies were present in his bloodstream, whereas they were not present upon admission to the hospital
Gee, I wonder if that could be the 8-gram injection of a monoclonal antibody designed specifically to bind Covid? Because if not, Regeneron is in the wrong business. (Regeneron being the name of the drug company, not the treatment)
Nobel Prize
Jennifer Doudna & Emmannuelle Charpentier shared the 2020 Nobel prize for chemistry thanks to their discoveries/work relating to gene editing, specifically isolating the components of CRISPR-cas9. This is likely the first Nobel to be awarded to a Hilo, Hawaii native.
Interestingly, Fang Zheng, who translated the discovery from prokaryotic (single-cell organisms, like bacteria) to eukaryotic (mostly multicellular organisms, like animals) cells, a step that really launched the technology into the sensation it has become in the biotech world, was left off the award list.
Whatever, he got the patents, he can deal with it.
Makena
Back in 2011 the FDA approved MAKENA, a treatment for the prevention of preterm births in women who have previously had preterm births. They did this based on the results of a 450 person trial. And the approval came with a caveat - AMAG Pharmaceuticals was required to do a post-market study to ascertain whether it really had an impact on pre-term birth.
A quick nine years later, we have an answer - it doesn't work. FDA has suggested it be pulled from the market.
Covid Vaccine Emergency Use
FDA also released it's nonbinding 18-page guidance for how they will handle Covid vaccine Emergency Use Authorizations. We'll save you some time - they said they would approve them if they looked good. That's the actual level of detail. #soHelpful
Crabeater Seal
Contrary to what the name of this animal suggests, they dine primarily on krill. Lots of large sea creatures do, but not sure any others do so with with badass teeth like this:
