Most people who get the flu bounce right back in a week or two. But, for others, the respiratory infection is the beginning of lasting asthma-like symptoms. Though I had a flu shot, I had a pretty bad respiratory illness last fall, and since that time I’ve had exercise-induced asthma...
Most people who get the flu bounce right back in a week or two. But, for others, the respiratory infection is the beginning of lasting asthma-like symptoms. Though I had a flu shot, I had a pretty bad respiratory illness last fall, and since that time I’ve had exercise-induced asthma that has occasionally required an inhaler for treatment. What’s going on? An NIH-funded team now has evidence from mouse studies that such long-term consequences stem in part from a surprising source: previously unknown lung cells closely resembling those found in taste buds.
A few weeks ago, I was pleased to take part in the announcement of NIH’s HEALing Communities Study. in four states hard hit by the opioid epidemic. This study will test a comprehensive, evidence-based approach—which includes the wide distribution of naloxone to reverse overdoses—with the aim of reducing opioid-related deaths in selected communities by 40 percent over three years.
In 1953, Francis Crick famously told the surprised customers at the Eagle and Child pub in London that he and Jim Watson had discovered the secret of life. When NIH’s Marshall Nirenberg and his colleagues cracked the genetic code in 1961, it was called the solution to life’s greatest secret. Similarly, when the complete human genome sequence was revealed for the first time in 2003, commentators (including me) referred to this as the moment where the book of life for humans was revealed. But there are many more secrets of life that still need to be unlocked, including figuring out the biochemical rules of a protein shape-shifting phenomenon called allostery [1].
Back in April 2003, when the international Human Genome Project successfully completed the first reference sequence of the human DNA blueprint, we were thrilled to have achieved that feat in just 13 years. Sure, the U.S. contribution to that first human reference sequence cost an estimated $400 million, but we knew (or at least we hoped) that the costs would come down quickly, and the speed would accelerate. How far we’ve come since then! A new study shows that whole genome sequencing—combined with artificial intelligence—can now be used to diagnose genetic diseases in seriously ill babies in less than 24 hours.
What an honor it was to perform these two songs with world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming , who presented the J. Edward Rall Cultural Lecture at NIH on May 13, 2019. I served as the lecture moderator, and we discussed the creative process, the intersections of music and science, and the Sound Health initiative, which is […]
