As a child born and raised in a low-income, urban neighborhood of Jersey City, NJ, Ijeoma Opara counted herself lucky. She had strong support from her parents, both college-educated Nigerian immigrants. But she also saw firsthand the devastating effects that gang violence, crime, drugs, and alcohol were having on too...
As a child born and raised in a low-income, urban neighborhood of Jersey City, NJ, Ijeoma Opara counted herself lucky. She had strong support from her parents, both college-educated Nigerian immigrants. But she also saw firsthand the devastating effects that gang violence, crime, drugs, and alcohol were having on too many young people in her community. When she was in high school, her family bought their first house about 20 miles away in the middle-class, suburban neighborhood of Roselle, NJ. The dramatic differences between these two worlds drove home for her how significant a zip code was in determining a child’s outlook and opportunities.
Doctors can’t reliably predict whether an adult newly diagnosed with COVID-19 will recover quickly or battle life-threatening complications. The same is true for children. Fortunately, the vast majority of kids with COVID-19 don’t get sick or show only mild flu-like symptoms. But a small percentage develop a delayed but extremely troubling syndrome called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). This can cause severe inflammation of the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, and other parts of the body, coming on weeks after recovering from COVID-19. Thankfully, most kids respond to treatment and make rapid recoveries.
If you love learning more about biology at a fundamental level, I have a great video for you! It simulates the 3D folding of RNA. RNA is a single stranded molecule, but it is still capable of forming internal loops that can be stabilized by base pairing, just like its famously double-stranded parent, DNA. Understanding more about RNA folding may be valuable in many different areas of biomedical research, including developing ways to help people with RNA-related diseases like certain cancers and neuromuscular disorders, and designing better mRNA vaccines against infectious disease threats (like COVID-19).
For the millions of Americans now eligible to receive the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, it’s recommended that everyone get two shots. The first dose of these mRNA vaccines trains the immune system to recognize and attack the spike protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The second dose, administered a few weeks later, boosts antibody levels to afford even better protection. People who’ve recovered from COVID-19 also should definitely get vaccinated to maximize protection against possible re-infection. But, because they already have some natural immunity, would just one shot do the trick? Or do they still need two?
It was wonderful to have First Lady Jill Biden pay a virtual visit to NIH on February 3, 2021, on the eve of World Cancer Day. Dr. Biden joined me, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Ned Sharpless, and several NCI scientists to discuss recent advances in fighting cancer. On behalf of the entire NIH community, […]
