Today "a milestone in the evolution of personalized therapies for rare & ultra-rare inborn errors of metabolism" —the 1st human to undergo custom genome editing —outgrowth of decades of NIH funded research nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE… nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NE… @NEJM nytimes.com/2025/05/15/healt…

A reporter gets cancer -- and learns the story of how Revlimid, one of the most expensive cancer drugs, became so expensive. By @DavidArmstrongX. Everyone I know in the biotech industry has heard the basic outlines of this story, but seeing David tell it in such personal detail brings it into sharp relief. propublica.org/article/revli…

Layoffs set for NIH are ‘devastating,’ former director Monica Bertagnolli says statnews.com/2025/02/16/nih-…

Here’s a rundown of Trump’s health policy stances and his potential top priorities in a second administration.

Love this city. #LAStrong 🎥: Kyle Cordova

BREAKING: U.S. regulators ban the dye called Red 3 from the food supply, nearly 35 years after it was barred from cosmetics because of potential cancer risk. apnews.com/article/fda-red-d…

GLP-1 pills are making their way through clinical trials. A look at how they might change an already revolutionized field of weight-loss drugs: cnn.com/2024/09/17/health/gl…

Scientists fear Covid may be responsible for a coming wave of dementia. Here's how having Covid may have harmed your brain. trib.al/x00LkT3

So proud to announce that today @voxdotcom Future Perfect is launching a three-day package on factory farming — and how we can end it. It's led by @mbolotnikova, one of the best reporters and writers on the subject out there (1/x) vox.com/future-perfect/36428….

Why great leaders think like a farmer:

Evidence that HPV vaccination can prevent several kinds of cancer--in girls AND boys--just keeps growing. What'll it take to convince more parents to get on board, and at an age when it can help the most? Some thoughts: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

RT @EricTopol: A systematic review of airplane flights and Covid infections: duration of flight correlated with infection risk, long flight…

Plant-based diets and the reduction of cardiovascular and cancer risk, a review of 49 studies journals.plos.org/plosone/ar… @PLOSONE

A new analysis of the Wegovy cardiovascular outcomes trial suggests “you don’t even need to lose weight to have a reduction in heart attack, strokes and death,” @DanielJDrucker tells us. He suggests GLP-1s may be protective by tamping down inflammation. cnn.com/2024/05/13/health/we…

As you watch the Aurora this evening, it’s worth reflecting that you’re getting a rare direct glimpse of the power of Nature. Those charged particles causing the atmosphere to glow came from a sunspot complex 17 times the diameter of Earth and traveled across 90 million miles at a million miles an hour. Without our magnetic field to protect us, our atmosphere would have been lost to space long ago. Those colours in the sky are Nature reminding us that we’re very lucky to be here amidst the violence. And perhaps therefore also reminding us not to shite it all up :-)

Some of my younger colleagues are watching this thing called the Met Gala tonight. Apparently, it's a fancy event that asks celebrities to wear clothes that esemble the logo of pharma companies. Here are some shots from the runway....

🏆 2023 LAS VEGAS BOWL CHAMPIONS 🏆

I just published A Quantifiable Impact of Strength of Schedule on Qualitative #NFL Analysis Or... The #Seahawks are better than you think. link.medium.com/0Cyj4AoVFFb

NEW: A key female chemist has been edged out of the Ozempic origin story. Svetlana Mojsov's experiences expose a disciplinary bias against chemists in favor of MDs and show how narratives of scientific discovery get passed down. From me and @MeganMolteni statnews.com/2023/09/27/weig…

This is a beautiful letter from Fiona Apple explaining to her fans why she must postpone a concert date. I am impressed at the way she was instantly able to make the decision to choose love over her career. Indeed, the world needs more of this. Enjoy the story... “It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later. Here's the thing. I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid. She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face. She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders. She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist. Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us. She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head. She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album. The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years. She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death. Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is. I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference. She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore. I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people. But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go. I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out. Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed. But this decision is instant. These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship. I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable and comforted and safe and important. I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that. Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known. When she dies. So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing. I'll be seeing you. Love, Fiona”